Far out in the woods there stood a little fir tree. His place was a good one: the sun reached his branches, the air was fresh, and all around him grew great companions, pines and firs of every size. But the little fir wanted very much, more than anything, to be a grown-up tree.

He never thought about the warm sun or the clean air, and he paid no attention to the village children who came looking for wild strawberries. They would arrive with a jug full of berries, or a row of them threaded on a straw, sit down near him, and say:

— Look at this pretty little tree.

And that was exactly what the fir could not bear to hear.

At the end of one year he had shot up a good deal, and at the end of another, a good deal more. That is how it is with firs: you can count their years by the new shoots.

— If only I were tall like the others — he would sigh. — Then I would spread my branches wide and look out over the whole world. Birds would build their nests in me, and when the wind came by, I would bend as grandly as they do.

Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds that sailed above him morning and evening gave him any pleasure at all.

In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would come bounding along and clear him in a single jump. How that made him angry. But two winters went by, and in the third the fir had grown so big that the hare had to go around him. "To grow and grow, to get older and taller," he thought. "Nothing in the world can be better than that."

In autumn the woodcutters came and felled the largest trees. It happened every year, and the fir, who by now was a fine size, trembled at the sight: the great trees crashed down with a splitting noise, their branches were cut away, and they lay long and bare, hardly to be recognised. Then they were loaded onto carts and dragged out of the forest.

Where did they go? What became of them?

In spring, when the swallows and the storks arrived, the fir asked them:

— Do you know where they took those trees? Have you met any of them?

The swallows knew nothing about it. But the stork looked thoughtful, nodded his head, and said:

— I believe I do know. Flying here from Egypt I passed many ships with magnificent masts. I would wager those were your trees, for they smelled of fir. You may be pleased, because they stood very high indeed, full of majesty.

— If only I were old enough to cross the sea — said the fir. — What is the sea really like? What does it resemble?

— That would take far too long to explain — answered the stork.

And off he went.

— Be glad of your growing — said the sunbeams. — Be glad of the new life stirring inside you.

And the wind kissed the tree, and the dew wept tears over him; but the fir understood none of it.

When Christmas came they cut down quite young trees, some not as large or as old as this fir, who could never rest and only wanted to be away. Those young trees, always the finest looking, kept all their branches; they were laid on the carts and drawn out of the wood.

— Where are those going? — asked the fir. — They are no taller than I am, and one was much shorter. Why did they keep all their branches? Where are they being taken?

— We know — chirped the sparrows. — We peeped in at the windows of the town below, and we know very well: the greatest splendor you can imagine is waiting for them. We saw those trees planted in the middle of a warm room and decorated with the loveliest things — gilded apples, honey cakes, toys, hundreds of little lights.

— And then? — asked the fir, trembling in every bough. — And then? What happens after that?

— After that we saw no more. But it was beautiful beyond comparing.

— Can it be that I was born for so glorious a life? — said the tree, full of hope. — That is even better than crossing the sea. I am tall already, and my branches spread like the ones they carried off last year. If only I were on the cart, in the warm room, in the middle of all that beauty. And afterwards something better must come, something grander; otherwise why would they decorate me? But what? I ache with longing, and I do not even know myself what is the matter with me.

— Be glad of our company — said the air and the light. — Be glad of your own young years.

But the fir was not glad at all. He grew and grew, green in winter and in summer. People who passed said he was a handsome tree, and near Christmas he was one of the first to be cut down. The axe went deep, right to the heart of the trunk; the tree fell with a sigh and felt a pain like fainting. He could not think of happiness, for he was sorry to be parted from the place where he had sprung up. He knew he would never again see his old companions, the bushes and flowers around him, perhaps not even the birds. The leaving was not agreeable at all.

The tree came to himself only when he was unloaded in a courtyard with the others and heard a man say:

— That one is splendid. We do not want the rest.

Then two servants in fine coats carried him into a large and handsome room. Portraits hung on the walls, and beside the white porcelain stove stood two great Chinese vases with lions on their lids; there were deep armchairs, silk sofas, and tables covered with picture books and toys that cost hundreds and hundreds of crowns, at least so the children said.

The fir was set upright in a barrel full of sand, though nobody could see it was a barrel, for it was wrapped in green cloth and stood on a bright carpet. How the tree quivered. What was going to happen? The servants and the young ladies began to decorate him. On one branch they hung little nets of coloured paper filled with sweets; on the others, apples and walnuts painted gold, as though they had grown there; and among the needles, small blue and white candles. Dolls exactly like real people, which the tree had never seen before, appeared among the greenery, and right at the top they fastened a large star of gold paper. It was splendid beyond describing.

— This evening — they all said. — How it will shine this evening.

"If only evening would come," thought the fir. "If only they would light the candles. And then, what happens then? Will the other trees from the forest come to look at me? Will the sparrows tap at the window glass? Will I take root here and stand decorated like this, winter and summer?"

He understood a great deal about the matter, of course. From sheer impatience, from sheer longing, he got a pain in his back — and with a tree, a pain in the back is the same thing as a headache with us.

Then the candles were lit. Such brightness, such beauty. The tree shook so hard in all his branches that one of the little candles touched the greenery and caught fire.

— Help! — cried the young ladies, and they put the flames out quickly.

Now the fir did not dare tremble at all. Afraid of losing any part of his finery, he grew dizzy in the middle of so much brightness. Just then both halves of the door swung open and a crowd of children rushed in, as though they meant to knock the tree over. The grown-ups followed quietly; the little ones stood still a moment. Only a moment: then their gladness filled the house, and they danced around the tree, and one present after another was pulled from his branches.

"What are they doing?" thought the fir. "What is going to happen now?" The candles burned down to the boughs, and as they burned down they were put out one by one. Then the children were given leave to plunder the tree. They fell upon him so fiercely that every branch cracked; if the trunk had not been firm in the sand, he would certainly have toppled over.

The children danced about with their beautiful playthings, and nobody looked at the fir any more except the old nurse, who peered in among the branches — and that was only to see whether a fig or an apple had been left behind.

— A story! — begged the children, pulling a plump little man towards the tree.

He sat down under the branches and said:

— Here we are in the shade, and the tree may listen too. But I shall tell only one story. Which will you have: the one about Ivedy-Avedy, or the one about Humpty-Dumpty, who fell down the stairs and even so came to the throne and married the princess?

— Ivedy-Avedy — shouted some.

— Humpty-Dumpty — shouted the others.

There was such a din and such an argument that the fir alone stayed silent. "Ought I not to be shouting with them?" he wondered. "Ought I not to be doing anything at all?" After all, he belonged to the party, and he had done his part in it.

And the little man told about Humpty-Dumpty, who fell down the stairs and even so came to the throne and married the princess. The children clapped and asked for more; they wanted Ivedy-Avedy as well, but he told only that one. The fir stood perfectly still and thought: never had the birds of the forest told anything like it. "Humpty-Dumpty fell down the stairs and married the princess all the same. Yes, that is the way of the world," thought the tree, and he believed every word, because the man who told it was so pleasant to look at. "Who knows, perhaps I shall fall down the stairs too and win a princess."

And he looked forward to the next day with joy, certain that he would be dressed again in lights, toys, fruit and gold paper.

"Tomorrow I shall not tremble," the fir promised himself. "Tomorrow I shall enjoy all my splendor. And I shall hear the story of Humpty-Dumpty again, and perhaps Ivedy-Avedy too." And all night long the tree stood quiet, thinking.

In the morning the manservant and the housemaid came in.

"Now the splendor begins again," thought the fir. But they dragged him out of the room and up the stairs to the loft, and left him in a dark corner where no daylight came. "What does this mean?" thought the tree. "What am I to do here? What shall I hear now?" And he leaned against the wall, thinking and thinking.

Time was the one thing he did not lack. Days and nights went by and nobody came up. When at last somebody did, it was only to push big trunks into a corner, and the fir was hidden behind them, as though forgotten for good.

"It must be winter out of doors," he thought. "The ground is hard and covered with snow; nobody can plant me now, and so they have put me up here under shelter until spring comes. How thoughtful they are. How kind people are, after all. I only wish it were not so dark here, and so terribly lonely. Not even a hare comes by. Out in the forest it was so pleasant when the snow lay everywhere and the hare went leaping past — even when he jumped over me, though I did not like it then. Here it is far too lonely."

— Squeak, squeak — said a little mouse at that very moment, poking his nose out of his hole.

And soon another came. The two of them sniffed at the fir and slipped in among his branches.

— It is dreadfully cold in here — said the mouse. — Apart from that it would be lovely in this corner, would it not, old fir?

— I am not old at all — answered the fir. — There are plenty of trees a great deal older than I am.

— Where do you come from? — asked the mice, who were terribly curious. — And what can you do? Tell us about the loveliest place on earth. Have you never been there? Have you never been in the larder, where cheeses lie on the shelves and hams hang from the ceiling; where one dances about on tallow candles; that place where one goes in thin and comes out round and fat?

— I know no such place — said the tree. — But I know the forest, where the sun shines and the little birds sing.

And he told them all about his young days. The mice had never heard the like; they listened to the end and said:

— What a great deal you have seen. How happy you must have been.

— I? — said the fir, thinking over what he had just told. — It is true. Those were happy times.

And then he told them about Christmas Eve, when he was hung with little cakes and candles.

— Oh — said the mice — how fortunate you have been, old fir.

— I am not old at all — he repeated. — I came out of the forest this winter. I am in my prime; I am only rather short for my years.

— What good stories you know — said the mice.

The next night they came back with four more mice to hear what the tree had to tell. The more the fir told, the more he remembered; and it began to seem that those times really had been very happy ones. "But they may still come back, they may still come back," he thought. "Humpty-Dumpty fell down the stairs and won a princess all the same." And just then he remembered a slender little birch that grew out in the forest: to the fir, that birch would make a fine princess indeed.

— Who is Humpty-Dumpty? — asked the mice.

So the tree told the whole story without missing a word, and the mice jumped for joy right up to the top of his branches. The next night two more came, and on Sunday even two large rats; but the rats found the stories dull, which made the little mice sad, and they too began to think there was not much fun in them.

— Do you know only one story? — asked the rats.

— Only that one — answered the tree. — I heard it on the happiest evening of my life; only I did not know then that I was happy.

— It is a very silly story. Do you know none about bacon and tallow candles? No larder stories at all?

— No — said the fir.

— Then goodbye — said the rats, and they went home.

In the end the little mice stopped coming too. And the tree sighed: "How pleasant it was when the sleek little mice sat around me and listened to what I told them. Now even that is over. But I shall take good care to enjoy myself when they bring me out of here."

And when would that be? One morning a crowd of people came to work in the loft. The trunks were dragged aside, the tree was pulled from his corner and thrown down on the floor — rather hard, it is true; then a man dragged him to the stairs, where the daylight came in.

"Now the good life begins again," thought the fir. He felt the fresh air and the first ray of sun, and there he was in the courtyard. It happened so fast, and there was so much going on around him, that the tree forgot to look at himself. The courtyard opened onto a garden in full flower: the roses hung fresh and sweet over the low wall, the lime trees were in blossom, and the swallows flew past.

— Quirre-vit, my husband has come — they said.

But they did not mean the fir.

— Now I shall really enjoy my life — he said happily, and spread his branches wide.

But the branches were withered and yellow. He was lying in a corner among the weeds and the nettles. The gold paper star was still up at his top, shining in the sun.

In the courtyard some of the merry children were playing who had danced around him at Christmas, and they were glad to see him. One of the smallest ran over and tore off the golden star.

— Look what is still hanging on this ugly old tree — she said, treading on the branches, which all cracked beneath her feet.

And the tree saw the beauty of the flowers and the freshness of the garden; and he saw himself, and wished he had stayed in his dark corner of the loft. He thought of his young days in the forest, of the merry Christmas Eve, and of the mice who had listened so gladly to the story of Humpty-Dumpty.

— It is over, it is past — said the poor fir. — If only I had been glad while I still had reason to be. But it is past, it is past.

And the gardener's boy chopped the tree into small pieces, which made a heap on the ground. The wood burned with a fine flame under the great copper kettle, and every crack was a sigh so deep it sounded like a shot.

The boys played in the courtyard, and the smallest of them wore on his chest the gold star the tree had worn on the happiest evening of his life. But that evening was past, and the tree was past, and the story came to an end as well. Every story comes to an end one day.