“I might as well go,” said the Snow Man, “for I think I am breaking up as
it is.”
During the whole day the Snow Man stood looking in through the
window, and in the twilight hour the room became still more inviting, for
from the stove came a gentle glow, not like the sun or the moon; no, only
the bright light which gleams from a stove when it has been well fed. When
the door of the stove was opened, the flames darted out of its mouth; this is
customary with all stoves. The light of the flames fell directly on the face
and breast of the Snow Man with a ruddy gleam. “I can endure it no
longer,” said he; “how beautiful it looks when it stretches out its tongue?”
The night was long, but did not appear so to the Snow Man, who stood
there enjoying his own reflections, and crackling with the cold. In the
morning, the window-panes of the housekeeper’s room were covered with
ice. They were the most beautiful ice-flowers any Snow Man could desire,
but they concealed the stove. These window-panes would not thaw, and he
could see nothing of the stove, which he pictured to himself, as if it had
been a lovely human being. The snow crackled and the wind whistled
around him; it was just the kind of frosty weather a Snow Man might
thoroughly enjoy. But he did not enjoy it; how, indeed, could he enjoy
anything when he was “stove sick?”
“That is terrible disease for a Snow Man,” said the yard-dog; “I have
suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Away, away,” he barked and then
he added, “the weather is going to change.” And the weather did change; it
began to thaw. As the warmth increased, the Snow Man decreased. He said
nothing and made no complaint, which is a sure sign. One morning he
broke, and sunk down altogether; and, behold, where he had stood,
something like a broomstick remained sticking up in the ground. It was the
pole round which the boys had built him up. “Ah, now I understand why he
had such a great longing for the stove,” said the yard-dog. “Why, there’s the
shovel that is used for cleaning out the stove, fastened to the pole.” The
Snow Man had a stove scraper in his body; that was what moved him so.
