There, too, were large easy
chairs, silken sofas, large tables full of picture-books, and full of
toys worth hundreds and hundreds of crowns--at least the children said
so. And the Fir-tree was stuck upright in a cask that was filled with
sand: but no one could see that it was a cask, for green cloth was hung
all around it, and it stood on a large gayly coloured carpet. Oh, how
the Tree quivered! What was to happen? The servants, as well as the
young ladies, decorated it. On one branch there hung little nets cut
out of coloured paper, and each net was filled with sugar-plums; and
among the other boughs gilded apples and walnuts were suspended,
looking as though they had grown there, and little blue and white
tapers were placed among the leaves. Dolls that looked for all the
world like men--the Tree had never beheld such before--were seen among
the foliage, and at the very top a large star of gold tinsel was fixed.
It was really splendid--beyond description splendid.
"This evening!" said they all; "how it will shine this evening!"
"Oh," thought the Tree, "if the evening were but come! If the tapers
were but lighted! And then I wonder what will happen! Perhaps the other
trees from the forest will come to look at me! Perhaps the sparrows
will beat against the window-panes! I wonder if I shall take root here,
and winter and summer stand covered with ornaments!"
He knew very much about the matter! but he was so impatient that for
sheer longing he got a pain in his back, and this with trees is the
same thing as a headache with us.
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