Fairy Tales / Сказки

Besides, if Hans came here, he might ask me to let him have some flour on credit, and that I could not do. Flour is one thing, and friendship is another, and they should not be confused. Why, the words are spelt differently, and mean quite different things. Everybody can see that.’

“�How well you talk!’ said the Miller’s Wife, pouring herself out a large glass of warm ale; �really I feel quite drowsy. It is just like being in church.’

“�Lots of people act well,’ answered the Miller; �but very few people talk well, which shows that talking is much the more difficult thing of the two, and much the finer thing also’; and he looked sternly across the table at his little son, who felt so ashamed of himself that he hung his head down, and grew quite scarlet, and began to cry into his tea.

“Is that the end of the story?” asked the Water-rat.

“Certainly not,” answered the Linnet, “that is the beginning.

“Then you are quite behind the age,” said the Water-rat. “Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pond with a young man. He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, and whenever the young man made any remark, he always answered �Pooh!’ But pray go on with your story.

“Well,” said the Linnet, hopping now on one leg and now on the other, “as soon as the winter was over, and the primroses began to open their pale yellow stars, the Miller said to his wife that he would go down and see little Hans.

“�Why, what a good heart you have!’ cried his Wife; �you are always thinking of others.

“So the Miller tied the sails of the windmill together with a strong iron chain, and went down the hill with the basket on his arm.

“�Good morning, little Hans,’ said the Miller.

“�Good morning,’ said Hans, leaning on his spade, and smiling from ear to ear.

“�And how have you been all the winter?’ said the Miller.