was terribly cold, snowing and starting to get dark, and it was New Year's Eve.
In the cold and dark a poor little girl, barefoot and bareheaded, walked down the street and had her slippers when she left home, but what she would have been served? were too big for her, so great that recently he had used his mother. And the poor little creature had lost once, when two cars passing at high speed had had to cross the road race. One of the slippers she could not find, and if the other took a boy, saying he would use it as a cradle, when he had children. Now the little girl went, and his bare feet were purple with the cold in an old apron she carried a number of matches and had a bundle in his hand. All day she could not sell anything and no one had given him a dime, there was hungry and cold, and so miserable, poor thing!
Snowflakes rested on her long golden hair, which curled nicely on the neck, but she did not think this really. The lights were shining from every window, and the road is a savory smell of roast goose was the last evening of the year, and at this she thought.
In a corner formed by two houses, one projected beyond the other, and sat crouched, pulling him to the legs, but she was still colder, and he dared not return home. She feared that her father would beat her, because she had sold no matches, and had not even a penny. And then it was so cold at home! They had only the roof above them and the wind penetrated through the cracks, even though they had been stopped up with straw and rags. Her little hands were almost frozen with the cold.
Ah! perhaps a burning match might be on to something. She could draw from the bundle and strike it against the wall, just to warm your fingers. He took one, and "Ritsch," against the wall. How to spark! like burning! was a flame warm and clear, like a little candle, as she held her hand. What a strange light! The little girl thought he was sitting by a stove with brass knobs and the fire burned so well! No, what happens? was already stretching the legs to warm up a bit as well, when the flame disappeared. And even with the flame of the stove. And he found himself sitting on the floor with a piece of burnt match in his hands.
now disfigure another, which lit up the wall, making it transparent like a veil. So he could see into the room a beautiful table laid with a white tablecloth and tableware made of porcelain and a steaming roast goose, stuffed with prunes and apples! The goose jumped down from the tray and dragged on the floor, already with a fork and a knife stabbed in the back, right toward the child, but at that moment the match went out and before the child was left alone on the cold wall. She lighted another. And he found himself sitting under a beautiful Christmas trees. It was larger and more decorated than the one he had seen the year before through the window at the rich merchant thousands of candles were burning upon the green branches, and colored pictures hung from the tree, just like the ones that decorated the store windows. Looked down upon her. The little girl stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out. The countless Christmas lights went up higher and higher, until it became the stars in the sky, then one of them fall, leaving the darkness of the night a long line of fire. "Now somebody dies!" said the girl, for her old grandmother, was the only one that ever loved her, but who was now dead, had said: "When a star falls, then a 'soul goes to God."
He lit another match that lit up all around, and in that light he saw the girl's grandmother, shiny and sweet! "Grandma!" he cried, "Oh, take me with you I know you will go away when the match goes out, vanish like the stove, the roast goose, the Christmas tree!" It turned all the other matches which had in the bunch, because he wanted to keep her grandmother and the matches glowed with a radiance that was clearer than during the day. The grandmother had never been so beautiful, so great. She took the little girl in her arms, they both flew upwards in brightness and joy. Now there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, were at God's little girl was found the next morning in the corner of the street, with red cheeks and a smile. She was dead, frozen to death on the last evening of the year. The new year was advancing on her tiny little body, surrounded by half burnt matches. "He wanted to warm up," said someone, but no one could know the good things she had seen, or in what light had gone with her old grandmother, in the joy of the New Year!
