II 
  
THE DESPAIR OF THE OLD WOMAN 
  
  
THE little shrivelled-up old woman felt her-
self happy again in looking on the pretty child, 
to whom everyone was paying court, whom 
everyone was trying to please; a pretty crea-
ture, as fragile as the little old woman herself, 
and like her, too, without teeth or hair. And 
she approached it, wooing it with baby-talk 
and pleasing faces. But the frightened baby 
struggled in the arms of the hag, and filled the 
house with its screams. Then the good old 
woman withdrew herself again into her eternal 
solitude, and wept in a corner, saying to her-
self, “Ah, for us unfortunate old women the 
age is past when we can please even the inno-
cent, and we frighten the little children that we 
wish to love.”