He never could tell afterwards exactly how he had spent the rest of the
winter. He only knew that he was very miserable and that he never had
enough to eat. But by-and-by things grew better. The earth became
softer, the sun hotter, the birds sang, and the flowers once more
appeared in the grass. When he stood up, he felt different, somehow,
from what he had done before he fell asleep among the reeds to which he
had wandered after he had escaped from the peasant's hut. His body
seemed larger, and his wings stronger. Something pink looked at him
from the side of a hill. He thought he would fly towards it and see
what it was.

Oh, how glorious it felt to be rushing through the air, wheeling first
one way and then the other! He had never thought that flying could be
like that! The duckling was almost sorry when he drew near the pink
cloud and found it was made up of apple blossoms growing beside a
cottage whose garden ran down to the banks of the canal. He fluttered
slowly to the ground and paused for a few minutes under a thicket of
syringas, and while he was gazing about him, there walked slowly past a
flock of the same beautiful birds he had seen so many months ago.
Fascinated, he watched them one by one step into the canal, and float
quietly upon the waters as if they were part of them.

'I will follow them,' said the duckling to himself; 'ugly though I am,
I would rather be killed by them than suffer all I have suffered from
cold and hunger, and from the ducks and fowls who should have treated
me kindly.' And flying quickly down to the water, he swam after them
as fast as he could.

It did not take him long to reach them, for they had stopped to rest in
a green pool shaded by a tree whose branches swept the water. And