Hans Christian Andersen

Rudy and Babette Hans Christian Andersen

Written towards the end of Andersen's career, Rudy and Babette tells the tale of Rudy, a boy who lost both his parents and goes to live with his uncle. Rudy had an 'encounter' with The Ice Maiden who continues to interact with him into adulthood. As the story goes forward Rudy meets and falls in love with a girl, Babette, and they are to be married, but... Let us now go to Switzerland, and see its wonderful mountains, whose steep, rocky sides are covered with trees. We will climb up to the fields of snow, and then make our way down to the grassy valleys, with their countless streams and rivulets, impetuously rushing to lose themselves in the sea. The sunshine is hot in the narrow valley; the snow becomes firm and solid, and in the course of time it either descends as an avalanche, or creeps along as a glacier. There are two of these glaciers in the valleys below the Schreckhorn and the Wetterhorn, near the long village of Grindelwald. They are a remarkable sight, and therefore many travelers from all countries come in the summer to visit them: they come over the high mountains covered with snow, they traverse the deep valleys; and to do this they must climb, hour after hour, leaving the valley far beneath them, till they see it as if they were in an air-balloon.