Chapter 5

她又在墙上擦了一根火柴，火光把她四周照亮了。她的老祖母就出现在那在亮光里，清晰而又明亮。她看起来依然是那么的慈爱和温和。“奶奶！”小家伙叫起来，“啊！把我带走吧！我知道这火柴一熄灭，你就会象温暖的炉火，香喷喷的烤鹅，美丽的大圣诞树一样不见的！”她急忙把剩下的一束火柴都擦着了，因为她希望能留住祖母。这束火柴发出强烈的光芒，照得比白天还要亮。祖母从来没有象现在这样显得这么高大、这么美丽。她把小姑娘抱起来，搂在怀里。她们俩在光明和快乐飞走了，越飞越高，飞到既没有寒冷，又没有饥饿和痛苦的地方，因为她们来到了极乐世界。

寒冷的早晨，一个可怜的双颊苍白却面带微笑的小姑娘，蜷缩在墙角里。她已经在旧年的除夕冻死了。新年的太阳升起来了，照在她那小小的身体上！她一动也不动地僵坐在那里，手中还捏着火柴，其中一捆已经完全烧光了。“她是想把自己暖一下呀！”一些人说道。然而却没有人知道，在新年里，她曾看到过多么美妙的东西，并和祖母一起去往了怎样美好的地方。

She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.

In the dawn of morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall; she had been frozen to death on the last evening of the year; and the New-year's sun rose and shone upon a little corpse! The child still sat, in the stiffness of death, holding the matches in her hand, one bundle of which was burnt. "She tried to warm herself," said some. No one imagined what beautiful things she had seen, nor into what glory she had entered with her grandmother, on New-year's day.