Now came the autumn.  The leaves in the forest turned yellow and brown; the wind caught them so that they danced about, and up in the air it was very cold.  The clouds hung low, heavy with hail and snow-flakes, and on the fence stood the raven, crying, “Croak! croak!” for mere cold; yes, it was enough to make one feel cold to think of this.  The poor little Duckling certainly had not a good time.  One evening—­the sun was just setting in his beauty—­there came a whole flock of great, handsome birds out of the bushes.  They were dazzlingly white, with long, flexible necks—­they were swans.  They uttered a very peculiar cry, spread forth their glorious great wings, and flew away from that cold region to warmer lands, to fair open lakes.  They mounted so high, so high! and the ugly Duckling felt quite strangely as it watched them.  It turned round and round in the water like a wheel, stretched out its neck towards them, and uttered such a strange loud cry as frightened itself.  Oh! it could not forget those beautiful, happy birds; and so soon as it could see them no longer, it dived down to the very bottom, and when it came up again it was quite beside itself.  It knew not the name of those birds, and knew not whither they were flying; but it loved them more than it had ever loved any one.  It was not at all envious of them.  How could it think of wishing to possess such loveliness as they had?  It would have been glad if only the ducks would have endured its company—­the poor, ugly creature!

And the winter grew cold, very cold!  The Duckling was forced to swim about in the water, to prevent the surface from freezing entirely; but every night the hole in which it swam about became smaller and smaller.  It froze so hard that the icy covering crackled again; and the Duckling was obliged to use its legs continually to prevent the hole from freezing up.  At last it became exhausted, and lay quite still, and thus froze fast into the ice.

Early in the morning a peasant came by, and when he saw what had happened, he took his wooden shoe, broke the ice-crust to pieces, and carried the Duckling home to his wife.  Then it came to itself again.  The children wanted to play with it; but the Duckling thought they wanted to hurt it, and in its terror fluttered up into the milk-pan, so that the milk spurted down into the room.  The woman clasped her hands, at which the Duckling flew down into the butter-tub, and then into the meal-barrel and out again.  How it looked then!  The woman screamed, and struck at it with the fire-tongs; the children tumbled over one another in their efforts to catch the Duckling; and they laughed and they screamed!—­well it was that the door stood open, and the poor creature was able to slip out between the shrubs into the newly-fallen snow—­there it lay quite exhausted.

But it would be too melancholy if I were to tell all the misery and care which the Duckling had to endure in the hard winter.  It lay out on the moor among the reeds, when the sun began to shine again and the larks to sing.  It was a beautiful spring.