Chapter I

My parents kept a little shop, and adjoining it was our small lodging. The shop contained lots of different things, such as candles, soap, brushes, and many other articles, all of which I regarded with profound respect. Each time that Christmas came round my father used to receive a large wooden chest, of which the opening and unpacking was my greatest joy. Sometimes my father would show no hurry about this to me so sacred a ceremony, and then I used to remind him of it. At last, however, he declared that he was going to open the chest, and after that I got so excited that I hardly knew what to do. I asked whether I might be permitted to help. But my father said that I was a bother and in his way. Fearing that he might dismiss me altogether, I managed to sit still for two minutes; but then I could bear it no longer. I went to fetch a pair of pinchers and a huge hammer, and stood in readiness, long before the chest was opened, with the tools in my hands. Then I watched my father with breathless admiration as he forced a chisel in between the chest and the lid, and very often burst the lid. My heart beat fast for a moment when the white, soft shavings became visible, and the mere sight of the small, brown cardboard-boxes, which my father lifted carefully out of the chest, made me tremble with delight. But the most joyous moment came when I was asked to get a pair of scissors to cut the string which tied the cardboard-boxes. I walked on tip-toe and spoke softly. Then the unpacking of the brown boxes began, and with loving eyes I looked at the figures made out of chocolate or sugar. There were riders with faces so bold that I hardly dared to think of eating them; angels with limbs so dainty and wings so transparent that I thought them to be real; and many other beautiful things. Broken pieces were found sometimes, and my father gave them to me. Although I longed to eat them I did not do so at once, but fetched a twig, or anything that might resemble a Christmas-tree, and fastened the rider, who, with his helmet cut off, looked less fierce now, the colour-bearer who had lost his flag, or the angel with but one arm, upon it. After I had watched them dangling about for a while I took them off again, and there can be but little doubt as to their final fate. My brother joined me in all these things, especially in eating. I remember a Christmas Eve, when I was five years old and my brother four. Father Christmas had presented me with a small wooden doll that pleased me enormously. It had no hair, nor could it move its limbs much, but I hardly noticed that. I sat on the freshly washed floor and played happily. My brother got a knife with but one blade, the kind that is used in our country to cut the grapes with. The next day, when my mother was about to wash us--an operation which was performed on the table--my brother told me that he did not consider my doll to be beautiful, whereupon I answered that I did not think his knife was a real knife. "Shall I," he asked, when my mother had left us to fetch something out of the kitchen, "shall I try it on your leg?" I don't believe I liked the idea; but too proud to go back on what I had stated, I allowed it at once. After that I felt a quick pain, and a few drops of blood showed on the white cloth whereon we sat. When I saw the blood, however, I began to cry, and my mother returned to the room. My brother was frightened too, but he laughed nevertheless, and asked me whether I did believe now that his knife was a real knife. After my mother had bandaged up my leg, she gave my brother a sound whipping with a birch that Father Christmas had left on the previous day for naughty children.