December 2008 / January 2009 - Association of Dutch Businessmen

Lifestyle
dried plums. And what was still more splendid to
behold, the goose hopped down from the dish, and
waddled along the floor, with a knife and fork in
its breast; he came straight to the little girl. Then
the match went out, and only the thick, damp,
cold wall was before her.
She lighted another. Then she was sitting
under a beautiful Christmas tree with red and
blue ribbons, a huge golden star on the top and
full of little lights; it was greater and finer than
the one she had seen in the department store at
her favourite shopping mall. Thousands of candles
burned upon the green branches, and colored
pictures like those in the shop windows looked
down upon her. The little girl stretched forth both
hands toward them; then the match went out. The
Christmas lights went higher and higher. She saw
that now they were stars in the sky: one of them
fell and made a long line of fire.
“Now some one is dying,” said the little girl,
for her old grandmother, the only person who had
been good to her, but who was now dead, had said:
“When a star falls a soul mounts up to God.”
She rubbed another match against the wall; it
became bright again, and in the light there stood
the old grandmother clear and shining, mild and
lovely.
“Grandmother!” cried the child. “Oh, take
me with you! I know you will go when the match
is burned out. You will go away like the warm
stove, the nice roast goose, and the great glorious
Christmas tree!”
And she hastily rubbed the whole bundle of
matches, for she wished to hold her grandmother
fast. And the matches burned with such a glow
that it became brighter than in the middle of the
day; grandmother had never been so large or so
beautiful. She took the little girl up in her arms,
and both flew in the light and the joy so high, so
high! and up there was no cold, nor hunger, nor
care -- they were with God.
But in the corner by the house sat the little
girl, with red cheeks and smiling mouth, died of
sadness on the last evening of the Old Year. The
New Year’s sun rose upon the little cold body, that
sat there with the matches, of which one bundle
was burned. She wanted to warm herself, the
people said. No one knew what fine things she
had seen, and in what glory she had gone in with
her grandmother to the New Year’s Day. At the
funeral there was only one person, the old Dutch
lady who cried like she had lost her own daughter.
From that day onwards she laid little white flowers
on that spot with a little white candle, every 31
December.
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Vol.18 • No. 10 • December 2008 / January 2009