everything vanished from his sight. He lay down and quietly fell
asleep. Next morning the King came to inquire after him. “How has it
fared with you this time?” asked he. “I have been playing at
nine-pins,” he answered, “and have lost a couple of farthings.” “Hast
thou not shuddered then?” “Eh, what?” said he, “I have made merry. If I
did but know what it was to shudder!”
The third night he sat down again on his bench and said quite sadly,
“If I could but shudder.” When it grew late, six tall men came in and
brought a coffin. Then said he, “Ha, ha, that is certainly my little
cousin, who died only a few days ago,” and he beckoned with his finger,
and cried “Come, little cousin, come.” They placed the coffin on the
ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay
therein. He felt his face, but it was cold as ice. “Stop,” said he, “I
will warm thee a little,” and went to the fire and warmed his hand and
laid it on the dead man’s face, but he remained cold. Then he took him
out, and sat down by the fire and laid him on his breast and rubbed his
arms that the blood might circulate again. As this also did no good, he
thought to himself “When two people lie in bed together, they warm each
other,” and carried him to the bed, covered him over and lay down by
him. After a short time the dead man became warm too, and began to
move. Then said the youth, “See, little cousin, have I not warmed
thee?” The dead man, however, got up and cried, “Now will I strangle
thee.”
“What!” said he, “is that the way thou thankest me? Thou shalt at once
go into thy coffin again,” and he took him up, threw him into it, and
shut the lid. Then came the six men and carried him away again. “I
cannot manage to shudder,” said he. “I shall never learn it here as
long as I live.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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