Wilhelm the Hedgehog

Wilhelm Kotarbiński was a Polish symbolist painter of historical and fantastical subjects.

Wilhelm is a cute little hedgehog who is interested in things that other hedgehogs of his age are not. He has a dream to see the daylight. It may seem easy for you but not for a hedgehog, who is a nocturnal animal and always falls asleep just before the sunrise. Poor Wilhelm almost lost all hope and feels very down, especially so when the winter is coming and all hedgehogs in the forest are preparing to fall asleep till the spring. Then, his friends find the way to make Wilhelm’s dream come true.

Nobody can say for sure when Wilhelm, the hedgehog, was born. He just came into being somewhere between Daylight and darkness. It seemed to the little one that he had plunged into Light. Or that Light had plunged into him.

Since then Wilhelm had got a habit of taking a good look at things around him as if he could see the beginning and the ending of Light in this way. The main thing he was interested in was what Light begins with. So the small hedgehog was not certain himself whether he had been born or whether he had only woken up as all hedgehogs did in spring after a long winter sleep.

Wilhelm was very hungry. And all of sudden a small crisp crust fell beside him.

The black-winged crow Margaret dropped it. The pigeons, who had long lived in the park, guessed that somebody was beneath the rustling last year’s leaves and hurried up to protect the little one from Margaret, who might start fighting for her crisp back.

But Margaret was a kind-hearted bird, so she just flew away not to embarrass anyone. In this way Wilhelm got new friends and a crust of bread for dinner.

He thought that Light and the crisp crust were two most important things in his life.

Wilhelm’s friends were of a different mind. They believed that the most important things in any hedgehog’s life were finding food, hunting and making their own burrow.

They did not see the point in Wilhelm’s aspiration to try and find the beginning of Light.

But soon the pigeons thought better of it. This is how it happened. Mary, the squirrel, liked reading newspapers. And in one of them she found an article on dream interpretations, which said that dreaming of a hedgehog betokened great success in life.

Mary was sure that it was Wilhelm, whom she had seen in her dream. So the pigeons, even though they did not put trust in horoscopes and dreambooks, decided not to argue with Mary and not to interfere in Wilhelm’s yearning for Daylight.

What if to have a hedgehog living beside them were a fortunate omen for all park-dwellers? These few words written in a newspaper gave Mary hope, inspiration and confidence.

So when the squirrel left Wilhelm after seeing him and treating him to some nuts, the little hedgehog saw sparkles around her receding figure.

When spring came, the world was imbued with colours which made it brighter and deeper, absorbing, mixing and recolouring Light. Wilhelm liked to look in the sky, which was full of Light, and nothing except clouds dimmed it.

One day Wilhelm’s friend Margaret brought him a piece of glass. It seemed to the little hedgehog to be the source of Light. Here, he found at last what he had been looking for.

But his joy did not last long. The Light disappeared and did not want to play again.

In summer Wilhelm would sit waiting for the moment when the last sunbeam died away. But however hard he tried, he was not able to seize that beam by the tail.

Soon nights became longer and colder. Wilhelm’s friends realized that he would never see the birth of Daylight as he was a nocturnal animal and every night he fell asleep just before the dawn.

What was more, in some time he was to fall asleep for the whole winter. The park-dwellers considered Wilhelm’s dream to see the birth of Light nonsense.

“He should look for the cozy place for hibernation”. “He will forget about all this when he grows up,” they said.

And only Mary, the squirrel, believed firmly that every dream should come true. What was she up to?

The squirrel, the crow and the pigeons came by an alarm-clock and presented Wilhelm with it. They hoped that he would not sleep through the sunrise. At last the little hedgehog would be able to see the birth of Daylight!

Next night Wilhelm’s sleep was restless: winter could come at any moment and he had not seen the birth of Daylight yet. And then all of a sudden the alarm-clock rang. It made Wilhelm open his eyes and then open them even wider.

Everything around him was lit with the first sunbeams, which he wanted to touch and which seemed to the bewildered hedgehog a little cold. When the crow, the squirrel and the pigeons ran up to him, giving him their warm smiles, the little hedgehog knew already, that Light was in his friends, dreams, joy and love. On realizing this, the little hedgehog was ready to sleep a sweet sleep.