their heads in delight, and the roses lifted their necks, laughing, among the green grasses. It was an enchanting sight; but winter still lurked in the farthest corner of the garden, where a little boy stood whose small body had not helped him to reach the branches of the tree. He was circling round the tree, weeping bitterly. The tree had bent down its branches for him to climb, but the child was small. And the Giant's heart melted with tenderness when his eye fell on him, and he said: "How selfish I have been! Now I know why spring would not come here. I will set the poor child on the top of the tree, and I will pull down the wall, and make my garden a playground for the children for ever."
So he went down into the garden and entered it gently. But when the children saw that, they were frightened and took to flight, and winter returned to the garden. Only the little boy did not take flight, for he did not see the Giant, his eyes being full of tears. And the Giant drew near him, took hold of him tenderly, and lifted him up into the tree. At once the tree blossomed, and the birds alighted on it to carol and sing; and the child opened his arms, flung them round the Giant's neck, and planted a kiss. When the other children saw the goodness of the Giant's heart, they came running back to the garden, and spring came back with them. And the Giant said to them: "It is your garden, little children." Then he took an axe and began pulling down the wall with it. And the people of the village beheld the Giant playing with the children in his lush garden — a garden more beautiful than any they had ever seen.
The children would play with the Giant until, when evening drew near and the time came for them to go home, they came to bid him farewell. "But where is your little companion?" And the children would answer him: "We do not know where he has gone." "You must tell him that I wish him to come tomorrow." But the
children would answer that they did not know where he lived, and had never seen him before. And the Giant felt a deep sorrow.
The days passed and the years followed one another, and the Giant grew old and his vigor waned, and he could no longer play. So he took to sitting in a great wooden chair, watching the children at their play, and he would say to himself: "I have the most beautiful roses, but the children are the most beautiful roses of life."
One rainy day he looked out of his window as he was dressing. He no longer shrank from winter now, for he knew that it was only spring's slumber, and that the roses had gone to their rest.
Suddenly he began to rub his eyes and to gaze long, between belief and disbelief. For the sight was wondrous indeed: in the farthest corner of the garden he saw a tree in blossom, with golden fruits hanging from it, and beneath it stood the little boy he had loved.
The Giant went down into the garden rejoicing, and hastened across the green grasses; but when he came near the child, his face flushed red with anger and he said: "Who has dared to inflict these wounds?" For on the palms of the child's two hands were the marks of nails. "Tell me who inflicted these wounds, that I may cut off his head with this great sword of mine."
And the child answered him: "No one inflicted them... these are the wounds of Love." And the Giant, kneeling before the child, seized by a mysterious feeling, said: "Who are you?"
The child smiled and answered: "Once you let me play in your garden; today I shall invite you to come with me to my garden, which is Paradise."
And when the children came to the garden after school as usual, they found the Giant lying dead beneath the trees, all covered with garlands of white blossoms.
• Between the ages of seventy and eighty-three, Vanderbilt, the rich American, added a hundred million dollars to his fortune.
• At seventy-four the philosopher Kant wrote three works, on anthropology, metaphysics, and ethics.
• At seventy-four the composer Verdi wrote "Otello," his masterpiece in the art of opera; at eighty, "Falstaff"; and at eighty-five, "Ave Maria," "Stabat Mater," and "Te Deum."
• At seventy-eight Lamarck, the French scientist, completed his great work in zoology: the Natural History of Invertebrate Animals.
• At eighty Cato the Roman began to learn the Greek language.
• At eighty Goethe finished writing Faust.
• At ninety-eight Titian, the Italian painter, painted his historic picture of the famous naval battle, the Battle of Lepanto.