And as the ancient dame combed her hair, Gerda forgot her adopted brother Kay more and more; for this old woman could conjure, but she was not a wicked witch.  She only practiced a little magic for her own amusement, and wanted to keep little Gerda.  Therefore she went into the garden, stretched out her crutch toward all the rosebushes, and, beautiful as they were, they all sank into the earth, and one could not tell where they had stood.  The old woman was afraid that, if the little girl saw roses, she would think of her own, and remember little Kay, and run away.

Now Gerda was led out into the flower garden.  What fragrance was there, and what loveliness!  Every conceivable flower was there in full bloom; there were some for every season; no picture book could be gayer and prettier.  Gerda jumped high for joy, and played till the sun went down behind the high cherry trees; then she was put into a lovely bed, with red silk pillows stuffed with blue violets, and she slept there, and dreamed as gloriously as a queen on her wedding day.

Next day she played again with the flowers in the warm sunshine; and thus many days went by.  Gerda knew every flower; but, many as there were of them, it still seemed to her as if one were wanting, but which one she did not know.  One day she sat looking at the old lady’s hat with the painted flowers, and the prettiest of them all was a rose.  The old lady had forgotten to efface it from her hat when she caused the others to disappear.  But so it always is when one does not keep one’s wits about one.

“What, are there no roses here?” cried Gerda.

And she went among the beds, and searched and searched, but there was not one to be found.  Then she sat down and wept; her tears fell just upon a spot where a rosebush lay buried, and when the warm tears moistened the earth, the tree at once sprouted up as blooming as when it had sunk; and Gerda embraced it, kissed the roses, and thought of the beautiful roses at home, and also of little Kay.

“Oh, how I have been detained!” said the little girl.  “I wanted to seek for little Kay!  Do you not know where he is?” she asked the roses.  “Do you think he is dead?”

“He is not dead,” the roses answered.  “We have been in the ground.  All the dead people are there, but Kay is not there.”

“Thank you,” said little Gerda, and she went to the other flowers, looked into their cups, and asked, “Do you know where little Kay is?”

But every flower stood in the sun thinking only of her own story, or fancy tale.  Gerda heard many, many, of them; but not one knew anything of Kay.

And what did the Tiger Lily say?

“Do you hear the drum, ‘Rub-dub’?  There are only two notes, always ’rub-dub’!  Hear the mourning song of the women; hear the call of the priests.  The Hindoo widow stands in her long red mantle on the funeral pile; the flames rise up around her and her dead husband; but the Hindoo woman is thinking of the living one here in the circle, of him whose eyes burn hotter than flames, whose fiery glances have burned into her soul more ardently than the flames themselves, which are soon to burn her body to ashes.  Can the flame of the heart die in the flame of the funeral pile?”