“From the little reading that I did I formed quite wonderful impressions of the world and of mankind.  They were all drawn from myself and the company I lived in; thus, if whimsical people were spoken of I could not imagine them other than the little dog, beautiful women always looked like the bird, and all old women were as my wonderful old friend.  I had also read a little about love, and in my imagination I figured in strange tales.  I formed a mental picture of the most beautiful knight in the world and adorned him with all sorts of excellences, without really knowing, after all my trouble, what he looked like.  But I could feel genuine pity for myself if he did not return my love, and then I would make long, emotional speeches to him, sometimes aloud, in order to win him.  You smile—­we are all now past this period of youth.

“I now liked it rather better when I was alone, for I was then myself mistress of the house.  The dog was very fond of me and did everything I wanted him to do, the bird answered all my questions with his song, my wheel was always spinning merrily, and so in the bottom of my heart I never felt any desire for a change.  When the old woman returned from her wanderings she would praise my diligence, and say that her household was conducted in a much more orderly manner since I belonged to it.  She was delighted with my development and my healthy look.  In short, she treated me in every way as if I were a daughter.

“‘You are a good child,’ she once said to me in a squeaky voice.  ’If you continue thus, it will always go well with you.  It never pays to swerve from the right course—­the penalty is sure to follow, though it may be a long time coming.’  While she was saying this I did not give a great deal of heed to it, for I was very lively in all my movements.  But in the night it occurred to me again, and I could not understand what she had meant by it.  I thought her words over carefully—­I had read about riches, and it finally dawned on me that her pearls and gems might perhaps be something valuable.  This idea presently became still clearer to me—­but what could she have meant by the right course?  I was still unable to understand fully the meaning of her words.

“I was now fourteen years old.  It is indeed a misfortune that human beings acquire reason, only to lose, in so doing, the innocence of their souls.  In other words I now began to realize the fact that it depended only upon me to take the bird and the gems in the old woman’s absence, and go out into the world of which I had read.  At the same time it was perhaps possible that I might meet my wonderfully beautiful knight, who still held a place in my imagination.

“At first this thought went no further than any other, but when I would sit there spinning so constantly, it always came back against my will and I became so deeply absorbed in it that I already saw myself dressed up and surrounded by knights and princes.  And whenever I would thus lose myself, I easily grew very sad when I glanced up and found myself in my little, narrow home.  When I was about my business, the old woman paid no further attention to me.