The Complete Fairy Books. Andrew Lang

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СКАЧАТЬ he warned his wife and family that, unless they wanted to die, they must on no account listen to a voice which they might some day hear calling them.

      For some years everything went well with them, and they lived happily in their new home. But one day, while they were all sitting together round the table, his wife suddenly started up, exclaiming in a loud voice:

      ‘I am coming! I am coming!’

      And she began to look round the room for her fur coat, but her husband jumped up, and taking firm hold of her by the hand, held her fast, and reproached her, saying:

      ‘Don’t you remember what I told you? Stay where you are unless you wish to die.’

      ‘But don’t you hear that voice calling me?’ she answered. ‘I am merely going to see why I am wanted. I shall come back directly.’

      So she fought and struggled to get away from her husband, and to go where the voice summoned. But he would not let her go, and had all the doors of the house shut and bolted. When she saw that he had done this, she said:

      ‘Very well, dear husband, I shall do what you wish, and remain where I am.’

      So her husband believed that it was all right, and that she had thought better of it, and had got over her mad impulse to obey the voice. But a few minutes later she made a sudden dash for one of the doors, opened it and darted out, followed by her husband. He caught her by the fur coat, and begged and implored her not to go, for if she did she would certainly never return. She said nothing, but let her arms fall backwards, and suddenly bending herself forward, she slipped out of the coat, leaving it in her husband’s hands. He, poor man, seemed turned to stone as he gazed after her hurrying away from him, and calling at the top of her voice, as she ran:

      ‘I am coming! I am coming!’

      When she was quite out of sight her husband recovered his wits and went back into his house, murmuring:

      ‘If she is so foolish as to wish to die, I can’t help it. I warned and implored her to pay no heed to that voice, however loudly it might call.’

      Well, days and weeks and months and years passed, and nothing happened to disturb the peace of the household. But one day the man was at the barber’s as usual, being shaved. The shop was full of people, and his chin had just been covered with a lather of soap, when, suddenly starting up from the chair, he called out in a loud voice:

      ‘I won’t come, do you hear? I won’t come!’

      The barber and the other people in the shop listened to him with amazement. But again looking towards the door, he exclaimed:

      ‘I tell you, once and for all, I do not mean to come, so go away.’

      And a few minutes later he called out again:

      ‘Go away, I tell you, or it will be the worse for you. You may call as much as you like but you will never get me to come.’

      And he got so angry that you might have thought that some one was actually standing at the door, tormenting him. At last he jumped up, and caught the razor out of the barber’s hand, exclaiming:

      ‘Give me that razor, and I’ll teach him to let people alone for the future.’

      And he rushed out of the house as if he were running after some one, whom no one else saw. The barber, determined not to lose his razor, pursued the man, and they both continued running at full speed till they had got well out of the town, when all of a sudden the man fell head foremost down a precipice, and never was seen again. So he too, like the others, had been forced against his will to follow the voice that called him.

      The barber, who went home whistling and congratulating himself on the escape he had made, described what had happened, and it was noised abroad in the country that the people who had gone away, and had never returned, had all fallen into that pit; for till then they had never known what had happened to those who had heard the voice and obeyed its call.

But when crowds of people went out from the town to examine the ill-fated pit that had swallowed up such numbers, and yet never seemed to be full, they could discover nothing. All that they could see was a vast plain, that looked as if it had been there since the beginning of the world. And from that time the people of the country began to die like ordinary mortals all the world over.13

13. Roumanian Tales from the German of Mite Thremnitz.

      THE SIX SILLIES

       Table of Contents

      Once upon a time there was a young girl who reached the age of thirty-seven without ever having had a lover, for she was so foolish that no one wanted to marry her.

      One day, however, a young man arrived to pay his addresses to her, and her mother, beaming with joy, sent her daughter down to the cellar to draw a jug of beer.

      As the girl never came back the mother went down to see what had become of her, and found her sitting on the stairs, her head in her hands, while by her side the beer was running all over the floor, as she had forgotten to close the tap. ‘What are you doing there?’ asked the mother.

      ‘I was thinking what I shall call my first child after I am married to that young man. All the names in the calendar are taken already.’

      The mother sat down on the staircase beside her daughter and said, ‘I will think about it with you, my dear.’

      The father who had stayed upstairs with the young man was surprised that neither his wife nor his daughter came back, and in his turn went down to look for them. He found them both sitting on the stairs, while beside them the beer was running all over the ground from the tap, which was wide open.

      ‘What are you doing there? The beer is running all over the cellar.’

      ‘We were thinking what we should call the children that our daughter will have when she marries that young man. All the names in the calendar are taken already.’

      ‘Well,’ said the father, ‘I will think about it with you.’

      As neither mother nor daughter nor father came upstairs again, the lover grew impatient, and went down into the cellar to see what they could all be doing. He found them all three sitting on the stairs, while beside them the beer was running all over the ground from the tap, which was wide open.

      ‘What in the world are you all doing that you don’t come upstairs, and that you let the beer run all over the cellar?’

      ‘Yes, I know, my boy,’ said the father, ‘but if you marry our daughter what shall you call your children? All the names in the calendar are taken.’

      When the young man heard this answer he replied:

      ‘Well! good-bye, I am going away. When I shall have found three people sillier than you I will come back and marry your daughter.’

      So he continued his journey, and after walking a long way he reached an orchard. Then he saw some people knocking down СКАЧАТЬ