Author's Notes: In the spirit of the old year fading into the new, here is the story of a young girl fading from one life to the next. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own Hellsing, for Kohta Hirano does. I did not write "Little Match Girl," for Hans Christian Anderson did.
It was terribly cold and nearly dark on the last evening of the old year, and the snow was falling fast. In the cold and the darkness, a poor little girl, with bare head and naked feet, roamed through the streets. It is true she had on a pair of slippers when she left home, but they were not of much use. They were very large, so large, indeed, that they had belonged to her mother, and the poor little creature had lost them in running across the street to avoid two carriages that were rolling along at a terrible rate.
One of the carriages had run right through a puddle and splashed icy water all over her dress and shawl, and she shivered horribly; but when she saw that the little bundle in her apron was still dry, she relaxed visibly. A little blond lad, who looked remarkably like her, but with cat ears, laughed at her plight and vanished from sight.
Scowling, she searched for her lost possessions; one of the slippers she could not find, and the other was seized by the same lad, who ran away with it, saying mockingly that he could use it as a cradle when he had children of his own. The girl spat and cursed; but she could not catch the wily lad.
So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet that were quite red and blue from cold. In an old apron she carried a number of matches, and had a bundle of them in her hands. No one had bought anything of her the whole day, nor had anyone given her even a penny.
A few clients looked promising, but whenever she tried to approach them, they turned her away.
She found one smart-looking foreigner with long blond hair, swarthy skin and round glasses pulling out a cigar, and she felt sure this gentleman would buy a match from a poor girl like her! But alas, the cigar was lit by the gentleman's old butler, and she watched with a sinking heart as the cigar was lighted and inhaled by the swarthy gentleman, who looked at her as though to say "What do you want?"
She tried again with several other such clients, but all of them turned her away. She found that she could not see from the crowd, and so she climbed up a lamp post and waved her matches for people to see—only to find herself being lifted and placed on the ground.
She turned and found that her unexpected benefactor was an unusually tall, broad soldier with white hair and red eyes peeking out from between a large hat and coat collar. She blinked; just to be sure she wasn't imaging him, and then timidly offered a match. But the soldier only shook his head and walked away.
The obnoxious blond lad who'd stolen her slipper ran up, smiled gloatingly at her, and walked away into the crowd with the soldier.
Depressed, dejected, and for the first time truly deflated since the start of the morning, the girl sighed and dragged her cold, numb feet away.
She crept along trembling with cold and hunger—a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!
The flakes of snow covered her fair hair, which fell in short spikes around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once gave a thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New Year's Eve; yes, of that she thought.
Through one of the windows she could see a grossly and obscenely overweight gentleman being served such a goose by a very tall, thin gentleman wearing large spectacles, who looked quite anxious for approval, and the very sight made the girl so sick that she had to run away.
She tried to keep her spirits up as she wandered through the crowded streets of London, watching as all the well-to-do seemed to have somewhere to go or somewhere to be. She spied one black-haired, freckled-faced soprano leaving the Opera with a swarthy dandy man, laughing giddily as he told her fortune with playing cards. She observed another dandy man, this one pale and fair, waiting impatiently for a carriage, while a swarthy chav told him an obviously dirty story, since he was making rude gestures and his companion wrinkled his nose and tried to pretend that it wasn't bothering him.
The girl was so preoccupied with her own sorrows that she did not notice the clergyman until she crashed into him, and he clutched her shoulder tightly.
"What is this?" he said with a thick Italian accent, "Such an impudent little Protestant street rat that dares to try to steal from an Archbishop from Rome?"
"Let her go Maxwell," his companion, an abysmally tall priest with a thick Scottish accent, "She hasn't done any real harm, and I'm sure she's just in a hurry to be where she wants to go. Isn't that right, lass?"
"That's right," the girl nodded, and she held up one of her matches.
"Since when do you stick up for filthy heathen children, Father?" Maxwell said snidely.
"Since when do ye bully little orphan children, especially when you were one yerself once, Enrico?" the priest challenged.
After a time, Maxwell relented, and stormed away with a sweep of his mighty cape. "No matter. I am late for a meeting with the Convention of Twelve anyway."
"Pay no attention to him, lass," the priest said, "He may puff himself full of airs, but he really is a good man at heart. If you allowed yerself to be open to God's True Word and Holy Light, ye'd see it too. I hope ye come to your senses too; may God be with you, child."
And with that, he disappeared behind the archbishop into the crowd, leaving the girl standing there, feeling worse than ever.
"May God be with me?" she asked, numbly, "But God has done nothing for me yet—even His own priests won't buy a match so that I may eat!"
By this time the street lamps were all lit, and the well-to-does were slowly disappearing into their homes and stores. All that remained were the poor and down trod like her. Among the destitute at this time of night, however, were many blackguards, villains and vagabonds that she didn't want to be caught alone with.
But she was so desperate to sell matches that she kept walking, and eventually she found a group of mercenaries loitering in an alley outside the local tavern. They were scarred, dirty, disgusting mercenaries, as close to animals as any man could get, but they were drinking and smoking cheerfully, and maybe one of them might be in need of a match?
But when she offered them her wares, they said pennies were too much for a match a piece. Desperate to make a sale, she offered two matches for one penny; only to have the response, "Two legs for one pussy," and they all laughed in such an awful way that cold and hunger no longer seemed scary after all, and she fled directly.
In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the other, she seated herself down and cowered down. Her little feet she had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go home she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and could not bring a penny of money. From her landlady she would certainly get blows, for Zorin had nearly broken her arm when she had come back penniless before, and threatened to cut her eyes out if she did so again. It did not matter any, for home was cold too, for above her was only the roof, through which the wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were stopped up with straw and rags.
Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! A match might afford her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew one out. "Rischt!" how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to warm them too; but—the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand.
She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the light fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil, so that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped down from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when—the match went out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind.
She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant's house.
Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands towards them when—the match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell down and formed a long trail of fire.
"Someone has just died!" said the little girl; for her parents, the only people who had loved her, and who were now no more, had told her that when a star falls, a soul ascends to Heaven.
She drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in the lustre there stood her dear mother and father, so bright and radiant, so mild, and with such expressions of love.
"Daddy! Mummy!" cried the little one. "Oh, take me with you! You will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, like the delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent Christmas tree!"
And she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall, for she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her mother and father near her. And the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than at noon-day: never formerly had her mother been so beautiful, and her father so tall. They took the little maiden, each between them on their arms, and all three in brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety—they were in Heaven.
But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall—frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. "She wanted to warm herself," the mercenaries said. No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her mother and father she had entered on the joys of a new year.