Page:Crane Italian Popular Tales.djvu/142

104 hid myself." (He mentioned the place—in a court-yard.) "At a certain hour, I heard a noise of chains and a chorus singing: Saturday and Sunday.' After two or three times, I said: And Monday.' They came and found me, saying that I had harmonized their chorus, and they wanted to reward me. They took me, removed my hump, and gave me two bags of money." "Oh, heavens!" said the other humpback. "I want to go there, too!" "Go, poor fellow, go! farewell!" The humpback reached the place, and hid himself precisely where his companion had. After a while he heard a noise of chains, and the chorus: "Saturday and Sunday!" Then another chorus: "And Monday!" After the humpback had heard them repeat: "Saturday and Sunday, and Monday!" several times, he added: "And Tuesday!" "Where," they exclaimed, "is he who has spoiled our chorus? If we find him, we will tear him in pieces." Just think! they struck and beat this poor humpback until they were tired; then they put him on the same table on which they had placed his companion, and said: "Take that hump and put it on him in front." So they took the other's hump and fastened it to his breast, and then drove him away with blows. He went home and found his friend, who cried: "Mercy! is not that my friend? but it cannot be, for this one is humpbacked in front. Listen," he said, "are you not my friend?" "The same," he answered, weeping. "I did not want to bear my own hump, and now I have to carry mine and yours! and so beaten and reduced, you see!" "Come," said his friend, "come home with me, and we will eat a mouthful together; and don't be disheartened." And so, every day, he dined with his friend, and afterward they died, I imagine.3

There are a number of Sicilian stories in which one's fate is personified and appears in the rôle of a guardian angel, or good and bad fairy. In the same way fortune is personified in several stories. The best example of the former class, which has also a point of contact with the latter, is found in Gonzenbach, No. 21, and is entitled: