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Main > Fairy tale > All authors > Andersen Hans Christian > Fairy tale ""Beautiful""

"Beautiful"

After all, it didn't matter, for Kala's mamma had the most wonderful thing of all-she had Kala herself.

And Alfred and Kala were engaged, which was inevitable, and the engagement was announced in the town newspaper. Mamma brought thirty copies of the paper, so she could cut out the announcement and send it to her friends. The betrothed couple were happy, and the mamma-in-law-to-be was happy, too; she said it seemed like being related to Thorvaldsen himself.

"At any rate, you are his successor," she told Alfred.

And it seemed to Alfred that Mamma had this time really said something clever. Kala said nothing, but her eyes sparkled; her every gesture was graceful. Yes, she was beautiful; that cannot be repeated too often.

Alfred made busts of Kala and his future mamma-in-law; they sat for him and watched how he molded and smoothed the soft clay between his fingers.

"I suppose it's only for us that you do this common work," said Mamma-in-law-to-be, "and don't have your servant do all that dabbing together."

"No, I have to mold the clay myself," he explained.

"Oh, yes, you're always so exceedingly polite," said Mamma, while Kala silently pressed his hand, still soiled by the clay.

Then he unfolded to both of them the loveliness of nature in creation, explaining how the living stood higher in the scale than the dead, how the plant was above the mineral, the animal above the plant, and man above the animal, how mind and beauty are united in outward form, and how it was the task of the sculptor to seize that beauty and imprison it in his works.

Kala sat silent and nodded approval of the thought, while Mamma-in-law confessed, "It's hard to follow all that. But my thoughts manage to hobble slowly along after you; they whirl around, but I try to hold them fast."

And the power of Kala's beauty held Alfred fast, seizing him and mastering him and filling his whole soul. There was beauty in Kala's every feature; it sparkled in her eyes, lurked in the corners of her mouth and even in each movement of her fingers.

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