裡冒出來的花朵一樣。我不禁想要從我的詩歌花園裡給你們帶來這些鮮花。我欽佩您所有的書籍，自從我們見面後，您本人也在我心中紮下了根。

I am back again in my quiet danish room, but my thoughts are still with you in England. while occupying myself with a longer work, five stories sprang from my head, as flowers sprout up in the woods. I feel moved to bring you these fresh flowers from the garden of my poetry. I admire all of your books, and since we met, you yourself have bee a fixture in my heart.

親愛的、高尚的查爾斯?狄更斯，您是在英格蘭海岸最後一個與我道別的人，所以很自然地，我希望您是第一個收到我從丹麥發出的問候的人，這是一顆充滿深情的心才能發出的問候。

dear, noble charles dickens, you were the last to say good - by to me on the shores of England, so it is natural that I should want you to be the first to receive my greeting from denmark, which only an affectionate heart can send.

在安徒生七十歲生日時，他的出版商送給他一本名為《母親的故事：十五種語言版》的特別書籍。《母親的故事》可能是受到了 19 世紀中葉描繪垂死和已逝孩子的繪畫傳統的啟發。

on his seventieth birthday, Andersen’s publishers presented him with a special volume entitled the Story of a mother: In Fifteen Languages. “the Story of a mother” may have been inspired by the mid - nineteenth - century pictorial tradition of representing the dying and deceased child.

1846 年 7 月，也就是這個故事出版的前一年，安徒生在尼姆拜訪了詩人讓?勒布林，並在日記中描述了他家展出的畫像：“牆上掛著兩幅為他的詩配圖的畫。一幅畫著一個垂死的孩子、一個嚴肅的天使，還有一位在痛苦的守夜中睡著了的母親。另一幅是油畫。畫中，天使帶著孩子飛走了，而母親仍然趴在搖籃上。” 安徒生說，有一天他在散步時，這個故事的情節突然就出現在他腦海裡。

In July 1846, a year before the story was published, Andersen had visited the poet Jean Reboul in N?mes and described in his diary the portraits on display i