Hoffmann's Fairy Tales (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1857. Excerpt: ... urns nzt. Not far from a smiling village, which scatters to the borders of the high road its white cottages, was seen a poor peasant woman, lying in a ditch, under a sky of rire. By the side of this unfortunate creature, there was an overturned basket, from which escaped fragments of dry wood, gathered in the neighboring forest. From time to time she raised herself with painful effort, and weepingly complained of her extreme misery. "Alas " said she "must the good God forever remain without pity for us? We are the only ones in the village, my man and I, who have not a single day of respite from our indigence. Hunger, thirst, cold and fatigue succeed each other, and often all unite to overpower us We had found in a corner of the garden, several old pieces of gold--the robbers came and stole them. The lightning has consumed our cottage, the hail destroyed our poor harvest, and, for a crown to our desolation, God afflicts us, since two years, with this abortion, who is my shame and the scorn of the village. At the last St. Lawrence day, little Zack was, by my faith, two years and a half old, and he cannot yet stand upon his spider legs; and instead of talking as other children of his age, he meows like a cat. Added to this, the accursed monkey devours the allowance of a child of eight years, and this appetite is no profit to him. What will become of us, good God, when this pestilence grows, and when he will eat three times as much, without doing any more labor? Alas alas what a calamity it is to live thus It would be a thousand times better to die " And the poor woman began to groan-again, so loudly and so long, that she fell, exhausted, into a deep and heavy slumber. Now, the little ugly fellow who thus troubled his unfortunate mother, looked like the s...