Six fine horses were pulling an immense carriage. The carriage would have been a heavy one without any people in it; but this enormous carriage was filled with people, and was in size a haystack. It slowly moved along, travelling not over boards, but carrying the master and his wife through heavy sand, in which it finally stuck fast. The horses’ strength gave out; the lackeys on the footboard, to save the horses and wheels, stepped down; but yet the rick did not move. The driver called to the horses: “Get up, get up!” and struck them with the whip, as if it was their guilt. He struck them hard and yelled and yelled, until he grew hoarse, while the horses were covered with foam, and steam rose from them. A gnat flew by, perceived the plight of the carriage, and was anxious to do it a good turn, and help it out. So it began to goad the horses and the driver, to make the driver on his box more agile, and that the horses might draw with more vim. Now it stung the driver, now the horses; it perspired, worked with might and main, but all in vain; it buzzed and buzzed, but all its songs were useless; there was not the slightest sign that the carriage would move; so after having laboured hard, it flew away. In the meanwhile, the horses had rested themselves, and dragged the huge mass out of the sand. The gnat saw the carriage from afar, and said: “How foolish it all was of me to abandon the carriage just as it was to move! ’Tis true I have worked hard in the sand, but at least I have moved the carriage.” FOUR ANSWERS You ask me, my friend, what I would do: (1) if I were a small man and a small gentleman; (2) if I were a great man and a small gentleman; (3) if I were a great man and a great gentleman; (4) if I were a small man and a great gentleman. To the first question I answer: I should use all my endeavour to become acquainted in the houses of distinguished people and men of power; I would not allow a single holiday to pass, without making the round of the city, in order to give the compliments of the season; I would walk on tiptoes in the antechambers of the mighty, and would treat their valets to tobacco; I would learn to play all kinds of games, for when you play cards you can sit down shoulder to shoulder with the most distinguished people, and then bend over to them and say in a low tone: “I have the honour to report to your Excellency such and such an affair,” or again become bolder and exclaim: “You have thirteen and I fourteen.” I would not dispute anything, but would only say: “Just so; certainly so; most certainly so; absolutely so.” I would tell the whole world that such and such a distinguished gentleman had condescended to speak to me, and if I could not say so truthfully, I would lie about it, for nothing so adorns speech as a lie, to which poets are witnesses.