Hans Christian Andersen - Top Ten World Writers

Author: Tong Yiqiu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
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1. The Ugly Duckling of Childhood On April 2, 1805, Hans Christian Andersen was born in a small, ancient town on the island of Funen in Denmark. The town was called Odense. His father was a poor shoemaker, and his mother had once been a laundress who had to beg for food. When they got married, they were so poor that they couldn’t even afford a bed. Their wedding bed was made of salvaged wooden planks. The young shoemaker, due to his family’s poverty, had not received an education. After becoming a father, he placed all his hopes on his son, hoping that Andersen would grow up to be a learned person. One day, a teenage boy came to the shoemaker to get his shoes repaired. During the repair process, the boy took out his textbook and boasted that he could recite the contents from memory. After the teenager left, the shoemaker couldn’t stop thinking about it. He picked up his work a few times but immediately threw it back in anger. “Andersen, listen,” he said to his son, “When you grow up, you must have ambition. Dad didn’t get a chance to study, but you must study well!” Little Andersen nodded, not quite understanding what studying was like, but he loved listening to his father read One Thousand and One Nights.! Andersen’s family was always very poor. Their small, dilapidated house served as both their home and his father’s workshop. But Andersen’s mother always made it look beautiful and tidy. The floor was polished so well that it reflected his shadow, the walls were adorned with many beautiful pictures, and the flowers on the windowsill filled the entire small room with fragrance. Above the shoemaker’s workbench hung a bookshelf filled with plays, novels, and storybooks. Andersen loved those pictures and flowers so much that he thought his small house was the most beautiful and comfortable place in the world. Living there was simply blissful. Little Andersen also loved the great outdoors. Sometimes, he would sneak out of the house and run to the field behind it, using a napkin he had stolen when his mother wasn’t looking to make a “tent.” Under the tent, he would stay for hours, listening to the melodious songs of birds, talking to the leaves glistening in the sunlight, and the clouds slowly drifting across the sky. The sound of the grinding wheels of the distant watermill made Andersen’s thoughts wander even further. Today, visitors to Andersen’s hometown often make sure to see this very place that once inspired him with beauty. The obedient and clever little Andersen also loved listening to adults tell stories. His grandmother worked in a small garden at a hospital. Near the garden was a spinning room where some elderly women spun yarn. They liked the bright-eyed, well-behaved boy and would sing him Danish folk songs and tell him all kinds of folk tales. These wonderful stories and sorrowful ballads deeply moved Andersen. He would unconsciously immerse himself in the plot while also enriching the characters and details with his own imagination. As a result, when he performed these stories for his grandmother again, they became even more vivid and interesting. The praise from his grandmother was the greatest reward for little Andersen. When Andersen was five years old, his mother sent him to an informal primary school to learn the alphabet and phonics. One day in class, while other students were studying hard, Andersen was staring at the teacher, thinking, “That old woman looks like a fat fish wearing a square hat!” The observant female teacher quickly noticed the distracted Andersen and struck him with a ruler, saying, “A child like you who studies this way will never achieve anything in life!” Little Andersen’s self-esteem was deeply wounded. He stood up, his face flushed, tears welling in his eyes, and stormed out of the classroom. When he saw his mother, his tears fell in large drops: “The teacher hit me! I’ll never go back there again!” Sure enough, he didn’t go back to that school the next day. Later, he attended another school. There, the young teacher, Carlセン, liked Andersen very much because he was the youngest student in the school but learned his lessons well. In reading and singing, no one could match him. He was intelligent, polite, and more lovable than other children. Carlセン often walked with him and sometimes gave him cookies and flowers. At this school, there was a girl named Sara Heiman. She studied hard and was especially good at arithmetic. Andersen liked her very much and imagined her as a princess in a fairy tale, while this “princess” dreamed of becoming a milkmaid. One day, Andersen told Heiman, “When I grow up, I’ll have a very, very big castle. Will you work for me there then?” “A poor kid like you wants a castle? Dream on!” she mocked Andersen. To convince the girl, Andersen drew a castle on paper and claimed that his ancestors were nobles who had fallen into poverty later. He even wanted to give her the drawing of the castle, but she said he was like his grandfather—a madman. Enraged, he ignored her. Soon after, Heiman left the school, but Andersen often thought about her. He then imagined that he saved Heiman from a fire, and she felt guilty as a result. Later, Heiman became a countess, and Andersen became a handsome knight, and they went to a distant land together. These fantasies made Andersen feel content. However, this school life did not last long. Carlセン found a better job at the post office and closed the school. Andersen had to leave school again. In the autumn of 1813, the French emperor declared war on a neighboring country, and Denmark recruited soldiers to support France. The poor shoemaker, unable to bear seeing his family struggle to get by, left his wife and children to join the army. He hoped to perform well and become a lieutenant, improving his family’s life. But he was too weak, and before the army reached the front lines, the shoemaker fell ill. By 1816, when he returned home, he was already emaciated. He died soon after, living to be only 33 years old. P1-3