{"id":2281,"date":"2012-03-23T08:42:25","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T07:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/?page_id=2281"},"modified":"2013-10-02T09:12:43","modified_gmt":"2013-10-02T07:12:43","slug":"the-drop-of-water","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/?page_id=2281","title":{"rendered":"The Drop of Water"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Drop of Water –\u00a0Illustration<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Hans Christian Andersen (1848)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Of course you know what is meant by a magnifying glass\u2014one of those round spectacle-glasses that make everything look a hundred times bigger than it is? When any one takes one of these and holds it to his eye, and looks at a drop of water from the pond yonder, he sees above a thousand wonderful creatures that are otherwise never discerned in the water. But there they are, and it is no delusion. It almost looks like a great plateful of spiders jumping about in a crowd. And how fierce they are! They tear off each other\u2019s legs. and arms and bodies, before and behind; and yet they are merry and joyful in their way.<\/p>\n

Now, there once was an old man whom all the people called Kribble-Krabble, for that was his name. He always wanted the best of everything, and when he could not manage it otherwise, he did it by magic.<\/p>\n

There he sat one day, and held his magnifying-glass to his eye, and looked at a drop of water that had been taken out of a puddle by the ditch. But what a kribbling and krabbling was there! All the thousands of little creatures hopped and sprang and tugged at one another, and ate each other up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is horrible!\u201d said old Kribble-Krabble. \u201cCan one not persuade them to live in peace and quietness, so that each one may mind his own business?\u201d<\/p>\n

And he thought it over and over, but it would not do, and so he had recourse to magic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must give them color, that they may be seen more plainly,\u201d said he; and he poured something like a little drop of red wine into the drop of water, but it was witches\u2019 blood from the lobes of the ear, the finest kind, at ninepence a drop. And now the wonderful little creatures were pink all over. It looked like a whole town of naked wild men.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat have you there?\u201d asked another old magician, who had no name\u2014and that was the best thing about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, if you can guess what it is,\u201d said Kribble-Krabble, \u201cI\u2019ll make you a present of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it is not so easy to find out if one does not know.<\/p>\n

And the magician who had no name looked through the magnifying-glass.<\/p>\n

It looked really like a great town reflected there, in which all the people were running about without clothes. It was terrible! But it was still more terrible to see how one beat and pushed the other, and bit and hacked, and tugged and mauled him. Those at the top were being pulled down, and those at the bottom were struggling upwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook! look! his leg is longer than mine! Bah! Away with it! There is one who has a little bruise. It hurts him, but it shall hurt him still more.\u201d<\/p>\n

And they hacked away at him, and they pulled at him, and ate him up, because of the little bruise. And there was one sitting as still as any little maiden, and wishing only for peace and quietness. But now she had to come out, and they tugged at her, and pulled her about, and ate her up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s funny!\u201d said the magician.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes; but what do you think it is?\u201d said Kribble-Krabble. \u201cCan you find that out?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy, one can see that easily enough,\u201d said the other. \u201cThat\u2019s Paris, or some other great city, for they\u2019re all alike. It\u2019s a great city!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a drop of puddle water!\u201d said Kribble-Krabble.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0Indeks over H.C. Andersens eventyr \u2014\u00a0Index of Hans Christian Andersen Fairy tales<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Drop of Water –\u00a0Illustration By Hans Christian Andersen (1848) Of course you know what is meant by a magnifying glass\u2014one of those round spectacle-glasses that make everything look a hundred times bigger than it is? When any one takes one of these and holds it to his eye, and looks at a drop of … L\u00e6s mere The Drop of Water<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2281","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2281"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54128,"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2281\/revisions\/54128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hcandersen-homepage.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}