昔々、悪魔の手で恐ろしい鏡が一枚作られたことがあった。その鏡には不思議な力があり、写すものをことごとく醜く、ねじ曲がって見せる呪われた力を持っていた。
Long, long ago, an evil demon once forged a fearsome mirror. The mirror was endowed with a strange power: whatever it reflected appeared distorted and ugly, as if some curse had been laid upon it.
悪魔たちはその鏡を抱えて天高く飛び上がり、神様までもを笑い者にしようと企てた。ところが、調子に乗りすぎたあげく、彼らは鏡を手から滑り落とし、鏡は地上へと真っ逆さまに落ちて粉々に砕け散ってしまった。
The demons carried this mirror up into the sky, intending to make a mockery of even the gods themselves. But, growing reckless in their delight, they let the mirror slip from their hands, and it plunged down to the earth and shattered into countless tiny pieces.
砕けた破片はあまりに細かく、何億という小さな見えないチリとなって、世界中の風に乗って散らばっていった。それを目に浴びた者はあらゆるものが醜く見え、心臓に刺さった者は心が氷のように冷たくなってしまうのだという。
The fragments were so fine that they became invisible dust, scattered upon the winds of the world by the billions. Anyone struck by a splinter in the eye, it was said, would see all things as ugly; anyone whose heart was pierced would feel his soul grow cold as ice.
北のほうのとある町には、カイとゲルダという仲のよい幼馴染が住んでいた。二人は隣同士の屋根裏部屋を行き来して、まるで兄妹のように毎日を共に過ごしていた。
In a certain town in the far north, there lived two close childhood friends, Kai and Gerda. Their attic windows faced one another, and the two of them passed every day in each other's company, like brother and sister.
ある夏の日のことであった。窓辺で薔薇の花を眺めていたカイの目に、突然「いたっ」と鋭い痛みが走った。そして同時に、心臓のあたりにも氷のような冷たさが走るのを感じた。
It happened on a summer day. Kai was gazing at the roses by the window when a sharp pain — "Ouch!" — pricked his eye. At the same instant, he felt a deep, icy cold strike him near the heart.
その瞬間から、優しかった少年は別人のように変わってしまった。母やゲルダに対しても冷たい言葉ばかりを投げかけ、薔薇の花を見ては「醜い、こんな花のどこが美しいというのか」と吐き捨てるようになった。
From that moment, the gentle boy became as though another person altogether. He had only cold words for his mother and for Gerda, and when he looked at the roses he would say, "Ugly things. What is so beautiful about flowers like these?" — and spit them away.
冬がやってきたある日、カイは広場へそりを引いていった。子どもたちが大きな馬車のそりにこっそりつないで遊ぶのを真似て、カイは自分のそりを、ふいに広場へ現れた純白の大そりに結びつけてしまった。
One winter day, Kai pulled his sled out into the town square. The children there liked to fasten their little sleds in secret onto passing carriage-sleds for a ride; copying them, Kai tied his sled to a large pure-white sled that had suddenly appeared in the square.
その大そりに乗っていたのは、人の目から見たこともないほど美しく、しかし恐ろしいほど冷たい女性、すなわち雪の女王であった。彼女のそりは音もなくはるか北へと走り去り、カイは一片の声も上げる間もなく、女王とともにどこかへ連れ去られてしまった。
Inside that great sled sat a woman more beautiful than anyone had ever set eyes on, and yet colder than the bitterest of frost — the Snow Queen herself. Her sled swept off silently toward the far north, and before Kai could so much as cry out, he was carried away with her to a place no one knew.