“Perhaps I may be destined to this glorious end one day!” cried the Fir Tree, rejoicing.  “That is even better than traveling across the sea.  How I long for it!  If it were only Christmas!  Now I am great and grown up like the rest who were led away last year.  Oh, if I were only on the wagon!  If I were only in the warm room amidst all the pomp and splendor!  And then?  Yes, then something even better will come, something far more charming, else why should they adorn me so?  There must be something grander, something greater still to come; but what?  Oh!  I’m suffering, I’m longing!  I don’t know myself what is the matter with me!”

“Rejoice in us,” said Air and Sunshine.  “Rejoice in thy fresh youth here in the woodland.”

The Fir Tree did not rejoice at all, but it grew and grew; winter and summer it stood there, green, dark green.  The people who saw it said, “That’s a handsome tree!” and at Christmas time it was felled before any of the others.  The axe cut deep into its marrow, and the tree fell to the ground with a sigh; it felt a pain, a sensation of faintness, and could not think at all of happiness, for it was sad at parting from its home, from the place where it had grown up; it knew that it should never again see the dear old companions, the little bushes and the flowers all around, perhaps not even the birds.  The Tree came to itself only when it was unloaded in a yard, with other trees, and heard a man say: 

“This one is famous; we want only this one!”

Now two servants came in gay liveries, and carried the Fir Tree into a large, beautiful room.  All around the walls hung pictures, and by the great stove stood large Chinese vases with lions on the covers; there were rocking chairs, silken sofas, great tables covered with picture books, and toys worth a hundred times a hundred dollars; at least, the children said so.  And the Fir Tree was put into a great tub filled with sand; but no one could see that it was a tub, for it was hung round with green cloth, and stood on a large, many-colored carpet.  Oh, how the Tree trembled!  What was to happen now?  The servants, and the young ladies also, decked it out.  On one branch they hung little bags cut out of colored paper, and every bag was filled with sweetmeats.  Golden apples and walnuts hung down as if they grew there, and more than a hundred little candles, red, white, and blue, were fastened to the different boughs.  Dolls that looked exactly like real people—­the Tree had never seen such before—­swung among the foliage, and high on the summit of the Tree was fixed a tinsel star.  It was splendid.

“This evening,” said all, “this evening it will shine.”

“Oh,” thought the Tree, “that it were evening already!  Oh that the lights may be soon lit!  When will that be done?  I wonder if trees will come out of the forest to look at me?  Will the Sparrows fly against the panes?  Shall I grow fast here, and stand adorned in summer and winter?”