บทที่ บทที่ 165 · The Duration of Life

. The Duration of Life

When God had created the world and was about to fix the length of each

creature’s life, the ass came and asked, “Lord, how long shall I live?”

“Thirty years,” replied God; “does that content thee?” “Ah, Lord,”

answered the ass, “that is a long time. Think of my painful existence!

To carry heavy burdens from morning to night, to drag sacks of corn to

the mill, that others may eat bread, to be cheered and refreshed with

nothing but blows and kicks. Relieve me of a portion of this long

time.” Then God had pity on him and relieved him of eighteen years. The

ass went away comforted, and the dog appeared. “How long wouldst thou

like to live?” said God to him. “Thirty years are too many for the ass,

but thou wilt be satisfied with that.” “Lord,” answered the dog, “is

that thy will? Consider how I shall have to run, my feet will never

hold out so long, and when I have once lost my voice for barking, and

my teeth for biting, what will be left for me to do but run from one

corner to another and growl?” God saw that he was right, and released

him from twelve years of life. Then came the monkey. “Thou wilt

certainly live thirty years willingly?” said the Lord to him. “Thou

hast no need to work as the ass and the dog have to do, and wilt always

enjoy thyself.” “Ah! Lord,” he answered, “it may seem as if that were

the case, but it is quite different. When it rains porridge I have no

spoon. I am always to play merry pranks, and make faces which force

people to laugh, and if they give me an apple, and I bite into it, why

it is sour! How often sadness hides itself behind mirth! I shall never

be able to hold out for thirty years.” God was gracious and took off

ten.

At last man appeared, joyous, healthy and vigorous, and begged God to

appoint his time for him. “Thirty years shalt thou live,” said the

Lord. “Is that enough for thee?” “What a short time,” cried man, “when

I have built my house and my fire burns on my own hearth; when I have

planted trees which blossom and bear fruit, and am just intending to

enjoy my life, I am to die! O Lord, lengthen my time.” “I will add to

it the ass’s eighteen years,” said God. “That is not enough,” replied

the man. “Thou shalt also have the dog’s twelve years.” “Still too

little!” “Well, then,” said God, “I will give thee the monkey’s ten

years also, but more thou shalt not have.” The man went away, but was

not satisfied.

So man lives seventy years. The first thirty are his human years, which

are soon gone; then is he healthy, merry, works with pleasure, and is

glad of his life. Then follow the ass’s eighteen years, when one burden

after another is laid on him, he has to carry the corn which feeds

others, and blows and kicks are the reward of his faithful services.

Then come the dog’s twelve years, when he lies in the corner, and

growls and has no longer any teeth to bite with, and when this time is

over the monkey’s ten years form the end. Then man is weak-headed and

foolish, does silly things, and becomes the jest of the children.

177 Death’s Messengers

In ancient times a giant was once travelling on a great highway, when

suddenly an unknown man sprang up before him, and said, “Halt, not one

step farther!” “What!” cried the giant, “a creature whom I can crush

between my fingers, wants to block my way? Who art thou that thou

darest to speak so boldly?” “I am Death,” answered the other. “No one

resists me, and thou also must obey my commands.” But the giant

refused, and began to struggle with Death. It was a long, violent

battle, at last the giant got the upper hand, and struck Death down

with his fist, so that he dropped by a stone. The giant went his way,

and Death lay there conquered, and so weak that he could not get up

again. “What will be done now,” said he, “if I stay lying here in a

corner? No one will die in the world, and it will get so full of people

that they won’t have room to stand beside each other.” In the meantime

a young man came along the road, who was strong and healthy, singing a

song, and glancing around on every side. When he saw the half-fainting

one, he went compassionately to him, raised him up, poured a

strengthening draught out of his flask for him, and waited till he came

round. “Dost thou know,” said the stranger, whilst he was getting up,

“who I am, and who it is whom thou hast helped on his legs again?”

“No,” answered the youth, “I do not know thee.” “I am Death,” said he.

“I spare no one, and can make no exception with thee, but that thou

mayst see that I am grateful, I promise thee that I will not fall on

thee unexpectedly, but will send my messengers to thee before I come

and take thee away.” “Well,” said the youth, “it is something gained

that I shall know when thou comest, and at any rate be safe from thee

for so long.” Then he went on his way, and was light-hearted, and

enjoyed himself, and lived without thought. But youth and health did

not last long, soon came sicknesses and sorrows, which tormented him by

day, and took away his rest by night. “Die, I shall not,” said he to

himself, “for Death will send his messengers before that, but I do wish

these wretched days of sickness were over.” As soon as he felt himself

well again he began once more to live merrily. Then one day some one

tapped him on the shoulder. He looked round, and Death stood behind

him, and said, “Follow me, the hour of thy departure from this world

has come.” “What,” replied the man, “wilt thou break thy word? Didst

thou not promise me that thou wouldst send thy messengers to me before

coming thyself? I have seen none!” “Silence!” answered Death. “Have I

not sent one messenger to thee after another? Did not fever come and

smite thee, and shake thee, and cast thee down? Has dizziness not

bewildered thy head? Has not gout twitched thee in all thy limbs? Did

not thine ears sing? Did not tooth-ache bite into thy cheeks? Was it

not dark before thine eyes? And besides all that, has not my own

brother Sleep reminded thee every night of me? Didst thou not lie by

night as if thou wert already dead? The man could make no answer; he

yielded to his fate, and went away with Death.

178 Master Pfriem (Master Cobbler’s Awl)

Master Pfriem was a short, thin, but lively man, who never rested a

moment. His face, of which his turned-up nose was the only prominent

feature, was marked with small-pox and pale as death, his hair was gray

and shaggy, his eyes small, but they glanced perpetually about on all

sides. He saw everything, criticised everything, knew everything best,

and was always in the right. When he went into the streets, he moved

his arms about as if he were rowing; and once he struck the pail of a

girl, who was carrying water, so high in the air that he himself was

wetted all over by it. “Stupid thing,” cried he to her, while he was

shaking himself, “couldst thou not see that I was coming behind thee?”

By trade he was a shoemaker, and when he worked he pulled his thread

out with such force that he drove his fist into every one who did not

keep far enough off. No apprentice stayed more than a month with him,

for he had always some fault to find with the very best work. At one

time it was that the stitches were not even, at another that one shoe

was too long, or one heel higher than the other, or the leather not cut

large enough. “Wait,” said he to his apprentice, “I will soon show thee

how we make skins soft,” and he brought a strap and gave him a couple

of strokes across the back. He called them all sluggards. He himself

did not turn much work out of his hands, for he never sat still for a

quarter of an hour. If his wife got up very early in the morning and

lighted the fire, he jumped out of bed, and ran bare-footed into the

kitchen, crying, “Wilt thou burn my house down for me? That is a fire

one could roast an ox by! Does wood cost nothing?” If the servants were

standing by their wash-tubs and laughing, and telling each other all

they knew, he scolded them, and said, “There stand the geese cackling,

and forgetting their work, to gossip! And why fresh soap? Disgraceful

extravagance and shameful idleness into the bargain! They want to save

their hands, and not rub the things properly!” And out he would run and

knock a pail full of soap and water over, so that the whole kitchen was

flooded. Someone was building a new house, so he hurried to the window

to look on. “There, they are using that red sand-stone again that never

dries!” cried he. “No one will ever be healthy in that house! and just

look how badly the fellows are laying the stones! Besides, the mortar

is good for nothing! It ought to have gravel in it, not sand. I shall

live to see that house tumble down on the people who are in it.” He sat

down, put a couple of stitches in, and then jumped up again, unfastened

his leather-apron, and cried, “I will just go out, and appeal to those

men’s consciences.” He stumbled on the carpenters. “What’s this?” cried

he, “you are not working by the line! Do you expect the beams to be

straight?—one wrong will put all wrong.” He snatched an axe out of a

carpenter’s hand and wanted to show him how he ought to cut; but as a

cart loaded with clay came by, he threw the axe away, and hastened to

the peasant who was walking by the side of it: “You are not in your

right mind,” said he, “who yokes young horses to a heavily-laden cart?

The poor beasts will die on the spot.” The peasant did not give him an

answer, and Pfriem in a rage ran back into his workshop. When he was

setting himself to work again, the apprentice reached him a shoe.

“Well, what’s that again?” screamed he, “Haven’t I told you you ought

not to cut shoes so broad? Who would buy a shoe like this, which is

hardly anything else but a sole? I insist on my orders being followed

exactly.” “Master,” answered the apprentice, “you may easily be quite

right about the shoe being a bad one, but it is the one which you

yourself cut out, and yourself set to work at. When you jumped up a

while since, you knocked it off the table, and I have only just picked

it up. An angel from heaven, however, would never make you believe

that.”

One night Master Pfriem dreamed he was dead, and on his way to heaven.

When he got there, he knocked loudly at the door. “I wonder,” said he

to himself, “that they have no knocker on the door,—one knocks one’s

knuckles sore.” The apostle Peter opened the door, and wanted to see

who demanded admission so noisily. “Ah, it’s you, Master Pfriem;” said

he, “well, I’ll let you in, but I warn you that you must give up that

habit of yours, and find fault with nothing you see in heaven, or you

may fare ill.” “You might have spared your warning,” answered Pfriem.

“I know already what is seemly, and here, God be thanked, everything is

perfect, and there is nothing to blame as there is on earth.” So he

went in, and walked up and down the wide expanses of heaven. He looked

around him, to the left and to the right, but sometimes shook his head,

or muttered something to himself. Then he saw two angels who were

carrying away a beam. It was the beam which some one had had in his own

eye whilst he was looking for the splinter in the eye of another. They

did not, however, carry the beam lengthways, but obliquely. “Did any

one ever see such a piece of stupidity?” thought Master Pfriem; but he

said nothing, and seemed satisfied with it. “It comes to the same thing

after all, whichever way they carry the beam, straight or crooked, if

they only get along with it, and truly I do not see them knock against

anything.” Soon after this he saw two angels who were drawing water out

of a well into a bucket, but at the same time he observed that the

bucket was full of holes, and that the water was running out of it on

every side. They were watering the earth with rain. “Hang it,” he

exclaimed; but happily recollected himself, and thought, “Perhaps it is

only a pastime. If it is an amusement, then it seems they can do

useless things of this kind even here in heaven, where people, as I

have already noticed, do nothing but idle about.” He went farther and

saw a cart which had stuck fast in a deep hole. “It’s no wonder,” said

he to the man who stood by it; “who would load so unreasonably? what

have you there?” “Good wishes,” replied the man, “I could not go along

the right way with it, but still I have pushed it safely up here, and

they won’t leave me sticking here.” In fact an angel did come and

harnessed two horses to it. “That’s quite right,” thought Pfriem, “but

two horses won’t get that cart out, it must at least have four to it.”

Another angel came and brought two more horses; she did not, however,

harness them in front of it, but behind. That was too much for Master

Pfriem, “Clumsy creature,” he burst out with, “what are you doing

there? Has any one ever since the world began seen a cart drawn in that

way? But you, in your conceited arrogance, think that you know

everything best.” He was going to say more, but one of the inhabitants

of heaven seized him by the throat and pushed him forth with

irresistible strength. Beneath the gateway Master Pfriem turned his

head round to take one more look at the cart, and saw that it was being

raised into the air by four winged horses.

At this moment Master Pfriem awoke. “Things are certainly arranged in

heaven otherwise than they are on earth,” said he to himself, “and that

excuses much; but who can see horses harnessed both behind and before

with patience; to be sure they had wings, but who could know that? It

is, besides, great folly to fix a pair of wings to a horse that has

four legs to run with already! But I must get up, or else they will

make nothing but mistakes for me in my house. It is a lucky thing for

me though, that I am not really dead.”