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 urtain: "Speak now, old woman! tell me, how judgest thou concerning thy former good fortune and thy present ill fortune?"

And Shem Shemagi answered from behind the curtain: "This is how I judge: I and my old man lived together for fifty years; we sought after happiness and we could not find it, and only now this is the second year in which we have wanted for nothing, and we live as working folks and have found real happiness, and we want nothing else."

The guests were astonished and the host was astonished; he even rose up and threw aside the curtain to behold the old woman. And there the old woman stood with folded arms, and she was smiling, and she looked at her old man, and he smiled also.

And the old woman also said: "I speak the truth, I jest not: we sought happiness for half a hundred years, and while we were rich we did not find it at all; now that we have nothing left and live among working people we have found such happiness that we need nothing better."

"And in what, then, does your present happiness consist ?"

"It consists in this: while we were rich I and my old man had not a single quiet hour together, we had no time to talk, no time to think of our souls, no time to pray to God. So many cares were we saddled with. At one time guests came to see us, and it was a worry what to set before each and with what presents to gratify them lest they should speak scornfully concerning us. Then t