THE ROSE-ELF

IN the midst of a garden grew a rose bush, which was quite covered with roses;and in one of them, the most beautiful of all, there dwelt an elf. He was so tiny that no human eye could see him. Behind every leaf in the rose he had a bedroom. He was as well formed and beautiful as any child could be, and had wings that reached from his shoulders to his feet. Oh, what a fragrance¹ there was in his rooms!and how clear and bright were the walls! They were made of the pale pink rose leaves.

The whole day he rejoiced in the warm sunshine,flew from flower to flower,danced on the wings of the flying butterfly,and measured how many steps he would have to take to pass along all the roads and cross----roads that are marked out on a single linden leaf.What we call veins² on the leaf were to him high roads and cross-roads.Yes,those were long roads for him!Before he had finished his journey the sun went down,for he had begun his work too late!

It became very cold, the dew fell, and the wind blew:now the best thing to be done was to come home.He made what haste he could, but the rose had shut itself up,and he could not get in; not a single rose stood open. The poor little elf was very much frightened.He had never been out at night before;he had always slumbered⁴ sweetly and comfortably behind the warm rose leaves. Oh, it certainly would be the death of him.

At the other end of the garden there was, he knew,an arbour of fine honeysuckle. The flowers looked like great painted horns, and he wished to go down into one of them to sleep till the next day.

He flew thither⁵. Silence! Two people were in the arbour----a handsome young man and a young girl.They sat side by side, and wished that they need never part. They loved each other better than a good child loves its father and mother.

“Yet we must part!”said the young man.“Your brother does not like us, therefore he sends me away on an errand so far over mountains and seas. Farewell, my sweet bride, for that you shall be!”

And they kissed each other,and the young girl wept, and gave him a rose.But, before she gave it him,she impressed a kiss so firmly and closely upon it that the flower opened.Then the little elf flew into it, and leaned his head against the delicate fragrant⁶ walls. But he could plainly hear them say“Farewell! farewell!”and he felt that the rose was placed on the young man's heart. Oh,how that heart beat! the little elf could not go to sleep, it thumped⁷ so.

But not long did the rose rest undisturbed on that breast.The man took it out, and as he went lonely through the wood, he kissed the flower so often and so fervently⁸, that the little elf was almost crushed.He could feel through the leaf how the man's lips burned, and the rose itself had opened, as if under the hottest noonday sun.

Then came another man, gloomy and wicked; he was the bad brother of the pretty maiden⁹.He drew out a sharp knife,and while the other kissed the rose, the bad man stabbed him to death,and then, cutting off his head, buried both head and body in the soft earth under the linden tree.

“Now he's forgotten and gone!”thought the wicked brother;“he will never come back again.He was to have taken a long journey over mountains and seas.One can easily lose one's life, and he has lost his. He cannot come back again, and my sister dare not ask news of him from me.”

Then with his feet he shuffled¹⁰ dry leaves over the loose earth, and went home in the dark night. But he did not go alone, as he thought; the little elf accompanied him. The elf sat in a dry,rolled-up linden leaf that had fallen on the wicked man's hair as he dug the grave.The hat was now placed over the leaf,and it was very dark in the hat,and the elf trembled with fear and with anger at the evil deed.

In the morning hour the bad man got home; he took off his hat,and went into his sister's bedroom.There lay the beautiful blooming girl, dreaming of him whom she loved from her heart, and of whom she now believed that he was going across the mountains and through the forests.And the wicked brother bent¹¹ over her,and laughed hideously¹², as only a fiend can laugh. Then the dry leaf fell out of his hair upon the coverlet; but he did not notice it,and he went out to sleep a little himself in the morning hour. But the elf slipped forth¹³ from the withered¹⁴ leaf,placed himself in the ear of the sleeping girl, and told her,as in a dream, the dreadful history of the murder;described to her the place where her brother had slain¹⁵ her lover and buried his body;told her of the blooming linden tree close by it, and said,

“That you may not think it is only a dream that I have told you, you will find on your bed a withered leaf.”

And she found it when she awoke. Oh, what bitter tears she wept, and to no one could she confide¹⁶ her sorrow. The window stood open the whole day:the little elf could easily get out to the roses and all the other flowers,but he could not find it in his heart to quit the afflicted¹⁷ maiden. In the window stood a plant, a monthly rose bush:he seated himself in one of the flowers, and looked at the poor girl. Her brother often came into the room, and, in spite of his wicked deed, he always seemed cheerful, but she dared not say a word of the grief that was in her heart.

As soon as the night came, she crept out of the house,went to the wood,to the place where the linden tree grew, removed the leaves from the ground, turned up the earth, and immediately found him who had been slain.Oh, how she wept,and prayed that she might die also!

Gladly would she have taken the body home with her,but that she could not do. Then she took the pale head with the closed eyes, kissed the cold mouth, and shook the earth out of the beautiful hair.“That I will keep,”she said. And when she had laid earth upon the dead body,she took the head, and a little sprig of the jasmine that bloomed in the wood where he was buried, home with her.

As soon as she came into her room, she brought the greatest flower-pot she could find: in this she laid the dead man's head, strewed¹⁸ earth upon it and then planted the jasmine twig¹⁹ in the pot.

“Farewell! farewell!”whispered the little elf: he could endure it no longer to see all this pain, and there fore³ flew out to his rose in the garden. But the rose was faded;only a few pale leaves clung to the wild bush.

“Alas!how soon everything good and beautiful passes away!”sighed the elf.

At last he found another rose, and this became his house;behind its delicate fragrant leaves he could hide himself and dwell.

Every morning he flew to the window of the poor girl, and she was always standing²⁰ weeping by the flowerpot. The bitter tears fell upon the jasmine spray, and every day, as the girl became paler and paler, the twig stood there fresher and greener, and one shoot after another sprouted²¹ forth, little white buds burst forth, and these she kissed. But the bad brother scolded his sister,and asked if she had gone mad. He could not bear it,and could not imagine why she was always weeping over the flower-pot. He did not know what closed eyes were there, what red lips had there faded into earth. And she bowed her head upon the flower-pot,and the little elf of the rose bush found her slumbering²² there.Then he seated himself in her ear, told her of the evening in the arbour,of the fragrance of the rose, and the love of the elves.And she dreamed a marvellously sweet dream, and while she dreamed her life passed away.She had died a quiet death, and she was in heaven with him whom she loved.

And the jasmine opened its great white bells.They smelt²³ quite peculiarly sweet;it could not weep in any other way over the dead one.

But the wicked brother looked at the beautiful blooming plant,and took it for himself as an inheritance,and put it in his sleeping-room, close by his bed, for it was glorious to look upon and its fragrance was sweet and refreshing²⁴. The little Rose-elf followed, and went from flower to flower----for in each dwelt a little soul----and told of the murdered young man, whose head was now earth beneath the earth, and told of the evil brother and of the poor sister.

“We know it!”said each soul in the flowers,“we know it: have we not sprung from the eyes and lips of the murdered man? We know it! we know it!”

And then they nodded in a strange fashion with their heads.

The Rose-elf could not at all understand how they could be so quiet, and he flew out to the bees that were gathering²⁵ honey, and told them the story of the wicked brother. And the bees told it to their Queen, and the Queen commanded that they should all kill the murderer next morning. But in the night----it was the first night that followed upon the sister's death----when the brother was sleeping in his bed, close to the fragrant jasmine, each flower opened, and invisible, but armed with poisonous spears, the flower-souls came out and seated themselves in his ear, and told him bad dreams, and then flew across his lips and pricked²⁶ his tongue with the poisonous spears.

“Now we have avenged²⁷ the dead man!”they said,and flew back into the jasmine's white bells.

When the morning came and the windows of the bed-chamber were opened, the Rose-elt and the Queen Bee and the whole swarm²⁸ of bees rushed in to kill him.

But he was dead already. People stood around his bed, and said,“The scent²⁹ of the jasmine has killed him!”Then the Rose-elf understood the revenge of the flowers, and told it to the Queen and to the bees, and the Queen hummed with the whole swarm around the flowerpot. The bees were not to be driven away. Then a man carried away the flower-pot, and one of the bees stung him in the hand, so that he let the pot fall, and it broke in pieces.

Then they beheld³⁰ the whitened skull³¹, and knew that the dead man on the bed was a murderer.

And the Queen Bee hummed in the air, and sang of the revenge of the bees, and of the Rose-elf, and said that behind the smallest leaf there dwells One who can bring the evil to light, and repay it.

1 fragrance   

n.芬芳，香味，香气

参考例句：

• The apple blossoms filled the air with their fragrance.苹果花使空气充满香味。
• The fragrance of lavender filled the room.房间里充满了薰衣草的香味。

2 veins   

n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理

参考例句：

• The blood flows from the capillaries back into the veins. 血从毛细血管流回静脉。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I felt a pleasant glow in all my veins from the wine. 喝过酒后我浑身的血都热烘烘的，感到很舒服。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 fore   

adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部

参考例句：

• Your seat is in the fore part of the aircraft.你的座位在飞机的前部。
• I have the gift of fore knowledge.我能够未卜先知。

4 slumbered   

微睡，睡眠（slumber的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The baby slumbered in his cradle. 婴儿安睡在摇篮中。
• At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept awake by ambition. 就在那时，我的善的一面睡着了，我的邪恶面因野心勃勃而清醒着。

5 thither   

adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的

参考例句：

• He wandered hither and thither looking for a playmate.他逛来逛去找玩伴。
• He tramped hither and thither.他到处流浪。

6 fragrant   

adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的

参考例句：

• The Fragrant Hills are exceptionally beautiful in late autumn.深秋的香山格外美丽。
• The air was fragrant with lavender.空气中弥漫薰衣草香。

7 thumped   

v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Dave thumped the table in frustration . 戴夫懊恼得捶打桌子。
• He thumped the table angrily. 他愤怒地用拳捶击桌子。

8 fervently   

adv.热烈地，热情地，强烈地

参考例句：

• "Oh, I am glad!'she said fervently. “哦，我真高兴！”她热烈地说道。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• O my dear, my dear, will you bless me as fervently to-morrow?' 啊，我亲爱的，亲爱的，你明天也愿这样热烈地为我祝福么？” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

9 maiden   

n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的

参考例句：

• The prince fell in love with a fair young maiden.王子爱上了一位年轻美丽的少女。
• The aircraft makes its maiden flight tomorrow.这架飞机明天首航。

10 shuffled   

v.洗（纸牌）( shuffle的过去式和过去分词 )；拖着脚步走；粗心地做；摆脱尘世的烦恼

参考例句：

• He shuffled across the room to the window. 他拖着脚走到房间那头的窗户跟前。
• Simon shuffled awkwardly towards them. 西蒙笨拙地拖着脚朝他们走去。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 bent   

n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的

参考例句：

• He was fully bent upon the project.他一心扑在这项计划上。
• We bent over backward to help them.我们尽了最大努力帮助他们。

12 hideously   

adv.可怕地，非常讨厌地

参考例句：

• The witch was hideously ugly. 那个女巫丑得吓人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Pitt's smile returned, and it was hideously diabolic. 皮特的脸上重新浮现出笑容，但却狰狞可怕。 来自辞典例句

13 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

14 withered   

adj. 枯萎的，干瘪的，（人身体的部分器官）因病萎缩的或未发育良好的 动词wither的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The grass had withered in the warm sun. 这些草在温暖的阳光下枯死了。
• The leaves of this tree have become dry and withered. 这棵树下的叶子干枯了。

15 slain   

杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词)

参考例句：

• The soldiers slain in the battle were burried that night. 在那天夜晚埋葬了在战斗中牺牲了的战士。
• His boy was dead, slain by the hand of the false Amulius. 他的儿子被奸诈的阿缪利乌斯杀死了。

16 confide   

v.向某人吐露秘密

参考例句：

• I would never readily confide in anybody.我从不轻易向人吐露秘密。
• He is going to confide the secrets of his heart to us.他将向我们吐露他心里的秘密。

17 afflicted   

使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• About 40% of the country's population is afflicted with the disease. 全国40%左右的人口患有这种疾病。
• A terrible restlessness that was like to hunger afflicted Martin Eden. 一阵可怕的、跟饥饿差不多的不安情绪折磨着马丁·伊登。

18 strewed   

v.撒在…上( strew的过去式和过去分词 )；散落于；点缀；撒满

参考例句：

• Papers strewed the floor. 文件扔了一地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Autumn leaves strewed the lawn. 草地上撒满了秋叶。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

19 twig   

n.小树枝，嫩枝；v.理解

参考例句：

• He heard the sharp crack of a twig.他听到树枝清脆的断裂声。
• The sharp sound of a twig snapping scared the badger away.细枝突然折断的刺耳声把獾惊跑了。

20 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

21 sprouted   

v.发芽( sprout的过去式和过去分词 )；抽芽；出现；（使）涌现出

参考例句：

• We can't use these potatoes; they've all sprouted. 这些土豆儿不能吃了，都出芽了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The rice seeds have sprouted. 稻种已经出芽了。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

22 slumbering   

微睡，睡眠（slumber的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• It was quiet. All the other inhabitants of the slums were slumbering. 贫民窟里的人已经睡眠静了。
• Then soft music filled the air and soothed the slumbering heroes. 接着，空中响起了柔和的乐声，抚慰着安睡的英雄。

23 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

24 refreshing   

adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的

参考例句：

• I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
• The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼，特别解乏提神。

25 gathering   

n.集会，聚会，聚集

参考例句：

• He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
• He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。

26 pricked   

刺，扎，戳( prick的过去式和过去分词 )； 刺伤； 刺痛； 使剧痛

参考例句：

• The cook pricked a few holes in the pastry. 厨师在馅饼上戳了几个洞。
• He was pricked by his conscience. 他受到良心的谴责。

27 avenged   

v.为…复仇，报…之仇( avenge的过去式和过去分词 )；为…报复

参考例句：

• She avenged her mother's death upon the Nazi soldiers. 她惩处了纳粹士兵以报杀母之仇。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Indians avenged the burning of their village on〔upon〕 the settlers. 印第安人因为村庄被焚毁向拓居者们进行报复。 来自《简明英汉词典》

28 swarm   

n.(昆虫)等一大群；vi.成群飞舞；蜂拥而入

参考例句：

• There is a swarm of bees in the tree.这树上有一窝蜜蜂。
• A swarm of ants are moving busily.一群蚂蚁正在忙碌地搬家。

29 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

30 beheld   

v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟

参考例句：

• His eyes had never beheld such opulence. 他从未见过这样的财富。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. 灵魂在逝去的瞬间的镜子中看到了自己的模样。 来自英汉文学 - 红字

31 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。