The Ugly Duckling

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It was summer in the country, and a mother duck was sitting on her nest. One by one, the eggs cracked open, and the little ducklings poked their yellow heads out. But the biggest egg did not crack. At last, it opened, and out came a large, gray, clumsy duckling, quite unlike the others.

"He is very big," said the mother, "but he is a good swimmer." That was a comfort, but it did not last. On the farm, the other ducks bit him, the hens pecked him, and even his brothers said, "We wish the cat would catch you, you ugly thing!" After a few weeks, he could not bear it anymore, so he ran away over the fence.

He wandered to a marsh where wild ducks lived. They looked at him and said, "You are extremely ugly, but we don't mind, as long as you don't marry into our family." He stayed there for two days, until two wild geese invited him to fly with them. Before he could answer, guns sounded across the marsh, and the geese fell into the water. The poor duckling hid in the reeds, too frightened to move.

That night, he found a tiny cottage where an old woman lived with a cat and a hen. The cat and the hen were very proud, and they laughed at his ideas. "Can you lay eggs?" asked the hen. "No." "Can you purr?" asked the cat. "No." "Then keep quiet!" They did not understand that he missed the water, and that he wanted to swim. So he left.

Autumn came, and then winter. The duckling suffered through the freezing months. One morning, the water turned to ice around his body, and he could not move. A farmer found him, broke the ice, and carried him home. But the children were so loud that he fled in fear and hid in the snow until spring.

When the sun returned, he stretched his wings and was astonished: they were strong and wide, and they lifted him easily. He flew over a garden, and there on a lake, he saw three beautiful white birds, with long, curved necks. "I'll go to them," he thought. "They will probably kill me because I'm so ugly, but I'd rather be killed by them than bitten by the ducks."

He bent his head over the water and waited. In the clear surface, he saw his own reflection, and it was not a clumsy, gray bird at all. It was a swan, white and elegant. The other swans swam around him and touched him gently with their beaks. Some children arrived and threw bread into the water. "Look at the new one!" they shouted. "He's the most beautiful of them all!"

The young swan did not know what to say. He lifted his wings, and for the first time, nobody said anything.