“In the morning the old woman woke me up and soon afterward gave me some work to do; I had, namely, to spin, and I soon learned how to do it; in addition I had to take care of the dog and the bird.  I was not long in getting acquainted with the housekeeping, and came to know all the objects around.  I now began to feel that everything was as it should be; I no longer thought that there was anything strange about the old woman, or romantic about the location of her home, or that the bird was in any way extraordinary.  To be sure, I was all the time struck by his beauty; for his feathers displayed every possible color, varying from a most beautiful light blue to a glowing red, and when he sang he puffed himself out proudly, so that his feathers shone even more gorgeously.

“The old woman often went out and did not return until evening.  Then I would go with the dog to meet her and she would call me child and daughter.  Finally I came to like her heartily; for our minds, especially in childhood, quickly accustom themselves to everything.  In the evening hours she taught me to read; I soon learned the art, and afterward it was a source of endless pleasure to me in my solitude, for she had a few old, hand-written books which contained wonderful stories.

“The memory of the life I led at that time still gives me a strange feeling even now.  I was never visited by any human being, and felt at home only in that little family circle; for the dog and the bird made the same impression on me which ordinarily only old and intimate friends create.  Often as I used it at that time, I have never been able to recall the dog’s strange name.

“In this way I had lived with the old woman for four years, and I must have been at any rate about twelve years old when she finally began to grow more confidential and revealed a secret to me.  It was this:  every day the bird laid one egg, and in this egg there was always a pearl or a gem.  I had already noticed that she often did something in the cage secretly, but had never particularly concerned myself about it.  She now charged me with the task of taking out these eggs during her absence, and of carefully preserving them in the vessels.  She would leave food for me and stay away quite a long time—­weeks and months.  My little spinning-wheel hummed, the dog barked, the wonderful bird sang, and meanwhile everything was so quiet in the region round about that I cannot recall a single high wind or a thunder-storm during the entire time.  Not a human being strayed thither, not a wild animal came near our habitation.  I was happy, and sang and worked away from one day to the next.  Man would perhaps be right happy if he could thus spend his entire life, unseen by others.