Kindergarten Read Free

loved, and who returned that love. He looked as though he were trying to memorise what was behind him. A few crumbs of bread were lying on the ground just behind him. On the outer side of the two children were the shadowy figures of adults, enclosing them, grasping their arms, and leading them away.
    C ORRIE was Lilli Danielsohn’s grandson, the grandson of somebody famous, somebody who had been forgotten and was being remembered again.
    There had been a revival of interest in Lilli’s work over the past year. There was an illustrated article in one of the Sunday newspaper colour magazines. A large-format colour paperback,
The Paintings of Lilli Danielsohn
, one of a series of art books, had been published some months earlier, and there were new editions of several of her books. Next year, another firm was producing Lilli Danielsohn greeting cards and posters, and there would be a Lilli Danielsohn calendar.
    It was part of a fashion at this time, a nostalgic return to a rural past. In clothes, interior design, food, perfection seemed to be a re-creation of an idealised country cottage: tiny floral designs, simple colours, uncluttered interiors. There was a retreat from the present into the childhoods of another age, the illustrations from Victorian and Edwardian children’s books.
    Safe inside the ordered silence, people seemed to believe that the world beyond the window-panes would be sun-filled cornfields, empty of all but birdsong.

two
    “F ITCHER’S B IRD ” was the first story from the Brothers Grimm to be illustrated by Lilli Danielsohn. The book was published in Berlin in 1929, the same year as
Emil and the Detectives
.
    O NCE there was a magician who could assume the appearance of an ordinary poor man. In this form he begged from door to door, and took away pretty girls. No one knew where he took them, or what happened to them. They were never seen again.
    One day he knocked on the door of a man who had three pretty young daughters. He looked exactly like a poor old beggar, with a basket on his back, as if to carry away any food or other gifts given to him. He begged for just a tiny bite of food, and the eldest daughter, moved for pity, came out to give him a piece of bread. He touched her once, gently, and she was compelled to climb into his basket. At once he sped away like the wind, leaving no tracks, and took her into the heart of a dark pathless forest, where his house was hidden.
    It was a lovely house, and he surrounded her with everything she desired. He said, “You will be happy with me for the rest of your days, my love, for I have given you everything you can ever wish for.”
    Seven days later he said to her, “I must go on a journey, and leave you by yourself for a few days. Here are all the keys of the house. You may go anywhere in the house, and look at everything there is, but you must not go into one room, the room which is opened by this little key. If you go into this room, you will die, my love.”
    He also gave her a white egg, and said, “You must also protect this egg very carefully for me. You must carry it around with you at all times, for grave misfortune would result if you were to lose it.”
    He gave her the keys and the egg; and she promised to follow his instructions exactly. She watched him leave, and then began to explore the house, from room to room, from the cellars to the attic, looking closely at everything. The house was rich with silver and gold, and as she walked through the gleaming quiet rooms she thought that she had never seen such beauty.
    Finally, she came to the forbidden door of the room she must not enter. She thought she would just walk past it, but she began to wonder what was behind that door. It was a door like any other door. She examined the little key carefully. It was a key like any other key. She put the key in the keyhole, turned it only a little, and the door was open.
    What did she see inside that room?
    An enormous bloody bowl stood in the middle