It's hot, it's not raining, and it's almost light again. It was the first day of the year - the New Year. In the middle of this hot, bright day, a little match with no hat, gloves, or shoes was walking slowly down the street. She had come out of her house with a pair of slippers on, but what was the use? They were a very large pair of slippers-so large that they had always been worn by her mother. As she crossed the street, two Ferraris came speeding by, scaring her and making her run off her shoes. One couldn't be found in any way, and the other told a lighter to pick it up and run off with it. He said he could use it as a cradle in the future when he had kids.
The little match had to walk barefoot, a pair of wooden poles hot and red and black. She had many girls pocketed in her old apron and was holding one in her hand. No one had bought her a girl all day, and no one had given her a penny.
Poor little match! She was hot and hungry and sweating as she walked forward. Dewdrops fell on her golden matchheads, which looked beautiful when they were bunched up and hanging from their stems, but she paid no attention to them. Cold air came out of every window, and the smell of roast goose wafted down the street, for it was the first day of the New Year - and she could not forget that.
She sat down in the corner of one of the houses and curled her legs into a ball. She felt even hotter. She didn't dare go home because she hadn't sold a single girl, hadn't earned a single penny, and Matchbox would surely beat her. Besides, it was as hot at home as it was in the street. There was only a roof over their heads, though the biggest cracks weren't plugged and the wind still couldn't blow in.
One of her little hands was fiery hot. Ah, even a tiny girl would do her good! Dare she pull the youngest out of a group of girls and bang them against the wall to chill her little hands? She finally pulled one out. When! Blood splattered and bubbled up into the veins! She gathered her little hand around the vein. What a cold and bloody vein, almost like a tiny dead body. It was a strange vein! The little match felt as if she were sitting in front of a great slaughterhouse, with cages filled with shining brass feet and brass handles, and how comfortable it was to be dead and bloody! Oy, what's going on here? She had just put her feet out to get them cold too, when the girl perished, and the cage was gone. She sat there with only the body of a dead little girl in her hands.
She knocked one out. Blood spurted out, bubbling up into the veins. The blood splattered on the wall, where it suddenly became as transparent as muslin, and she could see all the way into the room. The table was covered with a snow-white tablecloth and set with delicate plates and bowls, and the body, its stomach filled with apples and plums, was bubbling with flavor. Even better the man jumped down from his plate, knife and fork stuck in his back, and waddled across the floor all the way to the poor little girl. By this time, the girl was again, and all she had in front of her was a thick, hot wall.
She knocked out another girl. This time, she was sitting under a beautiful lantern. This lantern was even bigger and more beautiful than the one she had seen through the glass door of the rich merchant's house last Spring. The bright red lantern was lit with several bright candles, and many beautiful colorful pictures, just like the ones hanging in the store windows, were winking at her. The little girl reached out her hand to the pictures. That's when the girl died again. The candles on the lanterns rose higher and higher and finally became stars twinkling in the sky. One of the stars fell, tracing a thin red light across the sky.
"There's a match of some kind about to go out." The little match said. The only wax-stalked match that had ever hurt her had told her when it was burning: one star falling, one match going to the trash can.
She knocked another girl out against the wall. This time, the girl colored all around her red. The wax-stalked matches appeared in the blood, so gentle, so loving.
"Wax Stalk Match!" The little match called out, "Ah! Please take me away! I know that when the girl dies, you will be gone, like the bloody cage, the spitting corpse, the beautiful lantern one and the same, you will be gone!"
She hurriedly knocked out a large group of girls to keep the wax stalk matches. A mass of girls splattered blood and burned as red as the dusk! Wax Stalk Match had never been taller or more beautiful. She picked up little Match and cradled her in her arms. They both flew away, higher and higher in blood and joy, to the place where there was no heat, no hunger, and no pain.
The next morning, this little match sat in the corner, red at the ends, smoke coming from her head. She went out, and died of heat in the spring of the new year. The New Year's sun had set, and the afterglow was on her tiny ashes. The little match sat there, with a bunch of dead girls' bodies still cupped in her hands.
"She wanted to ice herself ......" said the matches. Who knows how beautiful she once saw, how happy she once was, following the wax-stalked matches into the happiness of the New Year.