Scenario:Le petit Hans est allé vendre ses fleurs au marché.
Une main douce se glisse dans la sienne.
Il remonte la colline main dans la main avec la jeune fille.
Il se sent heureux et cherche ses mots.
Create my version of this story
Le petit Hans est allé vendre ses fleurs au marché.
Une main douce se glisse dans la sienne.
Il remonte la colline main dans la main avec la jeune fille.
Il se sent heureux et cherche ses mots.
I was a shy boy, and I sold flowers.
The two things went together, I suppose.
I was always nervous when I had to talk to someone, and the flowers were a good excuse to avoid it.
I could just hold out my basket and let the flowers do the talking for me.
And if the person didn’t want any flowers, they would usually just ignore me and walk away, which was fine by me.
I didn’t have to worry about saying the wrong thing or making a fool of myself.
But sometimes people did stop and talk to me, and then I had to try to be brave and answer their questions without stuttering too much.
It was hard, but I tried my best.
And sometimes I even sold a flower or two.
Today was one of those days when someone stopped to talk to me.
“Could I buy one of those flowers?”
She pointed to the red roses.
I glanced down and saw that there was only one left in the basket.
I picked it up and held it out to her, trying to smile back, but I was so flustered I wasn’t sure if I was.
“Yes, of course,” I managed to say.
“How much is it?”
“A silver thaler,” I answered, my heart racing.
What had I done, asking for so much money for a single rose?
I should have told her it was a gift and given it to her for free.
But she didn’t seem to mind at all.
In fact, she reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out a coin, which she dropped into the palm of my hand.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Do you have any more flowers?”
I nodded, and she smiled again, making my heart race even faster as she held out her hand.
“I’d like to buy them all, please,” she said.
I could hardly believe my ears.
All of them?
That’s what she had said, wasn’t it?
“All of them?”
“Yes, please,” she said again.
She must have seen the look on my face, because her smile turned into a grin.
“Unless you don’t want to sell them to me,” she said.
“No, no,” I answered quickly.
“I mean, I do.I certainly do.”
“Good.” She laughed and held out her hand again.
And so I gave her all the flowers in my basket: one red rose, two white lilies, and three pink daisies.
When I had gathered them together into a bouquet, I handed them to her, trying not to stare too much at how pretty they looked in her arms or how pretty she looked herself standing there with them.
There was something about her that made me feel like I would never be able to stop staring at her, no matter how hard I tried.
When she took the bouquet from me, our hands brushed against each other for just a moment, and it felt like electricity zipping up my arm and through my entire body.
I could hardly believe what was happening: not just that she had asked me to sell all my flowers to her, but that she was standing right in front of me and talking to me!
And even laughing with me!
It seemed almost too good to be true.
I must be dreaming, or else I was just so tired from getting up so early in the morning that I couldn’t think straight anymore.
But then the girl broke the silence with another laugh, and I realized that this was no dream.
This was real life, and this beautiful girl really was standing right in front of me, holding flowers that she had bought from me with a silver thaler and laughing with me as if we were old friends.
“Do you always stare at people like that when they talk to you?”
she asked with a teasing smirk on her face.
She wasn’t really there.
The girl smiled and squeezed my hand, and I felt myself melting into the ground.
“Now, let’s go,” she said, tugging on my arm to pull me along behind her as she started walking again, this time leading me in the direction of the hill.
“But… Don’t you think we should go back to the market first?”
I asked as I hurried to keep pace with her.
“What if I need to get more flowers?I don’t want the shopkeeper to get mad at me.”
The girl laughed, and the sound of her laughter filled my heart with joy.
“He won’t be mad,” she said, looking back over her shoulder to smile at me.
“You don’t have to worry about him.I’ll take care of everything, I promise.”
I didn’t know what she meant by “everything,” but I didn’t care.
All I knew was that I could trust her, and that as long as she was with me, nothing else mattered anymore.
The truth was that I was a little worried about what the shopkeeper would say when he found out that all of his flowers were gone, but as soon as I looked into the girl’s eyes and saw that they were filled with excitement, I knew that she was right: It didn’t matter.
All that mattered was that I was with her, and that I had a chance to make her happy.
“All right, then,” I said, smiling back at her as we walked together through the market.
“If you’re sure…”
The girl laughed again and tugged on my arm to pull me even closer to her side.
“I’m always sure,” she said with a wink.
“But don’t worry, it’ll be fun!”
With that, she skipped ahead of me for a few paces before turning around to take my hands into hers once more.
“Come on!”
she said, still smiling as she looked up at me with those bright blue eyes of hers.
“We have to hurry!”
The girl’s words startled me, and for a moment, I didn’t know what to say.
But then, before I had a chance to answer, she grabbed hold of my arm and started dragging me along behind her as she ran through the market, her long golden hair waving in the wind like a flag as we went.
“H-Hey!”
I stammered as I tried to keep up with her.
“W-What are you doing?”
“We have to go,” the girl said, glancing back over her shoulder with an impish smile.
“The hill is waiting for us, and we can’t be late.
Now come on!”
With that, she quickened her pace, and before I knew it, we were running through the market together, laughing and shouting as we went.
It was something that I had never done before in all of my life, and yet it felt so natural and so right that I couldn’t help but wonder why it had taken me so long to try it.
But then I looked down into her bright blue eyes and saw that they were full of excitement and joy, and I knew that as long as she was with me, we could go anywhere and do anything, and it would always be fun.
Even if we were just running through the market together.
“Where are we going?”
I called out to her as we ran hand in hand.
“What’s up this hill that you’re so excited about?”
It was a simple question, but it was one that came from the deepest depths of my heart, and for a moment, it seemed to catch the girl off guard.
She stopped running and turned around to look up at me with an apologetic smile on her face.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she let go of my hand and took a few steps away from me to catch her breath.
“I didn’t mean to get ahead of myself like that.
“It’s just that… I really wanted to see it for myself.”
The girl hesitated for a moment and bit her lip as she stared up at me with those bright blue eyes of hers, and for an instant, it seemed as if she were about to say something else.
But then she smiled and shook her head before looking away again in embarrassment as she took a deep breath and tried to compose herself.
“I’m sorry,” she said again as she looked down at the ground with a frown on her face.
“I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s all right,” I said quickly as I stepped forward to take her hand in mine once more.
“If it’s something that you really want to do, then… Well, then I want to do it too.”
The words came tumbling out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about them, and as soon as they did, I felt my face growing hot with embarrassment all over again…
But then I saw the girl looking up at me with a strange expression on her face, and before I knew it, my shame was forgotten as she took hold of my hand and started running again.
“Then let’s go!”
she cried out as she laughed and pulled me along behind her once more.
“The hill is waiting for us, and we can’t be late!
Now come on!”
Before I had a chance to say another word or even think about what was happening anymore, we were running through the market together once more as we made our way up the hillside path in search of its hidden secrets… and in search of the truth about the mysterious girl who had somehow managed to take hold of my heart.
As the girl pulled me up the hill behind her, something strange happened: Her mood changed completely.