Little Poems in Prose

both at once, and I think one would become quite mad if one listened too long. One of them, drawing his bow across his violin, seemed to tell the story of some grievance, and the other, making his little hammer dance upon the strings of a little piano that was hung to his neck by a strap, seemed to be laughing at his neighbor’s complaint, while the third from time to time clashed his cymbals with an extraordinary violence. They were so pleased with themselves that they kept on playing their wild men’s music even after the crowd had dispersed; finally they gathered up the half- pence that had been thrown them, slung their luggage on their backs, and went off. I wanted to know where they lived, so I followed them a long way off, right to the edge of the forest, and only then did I understand that they did not live anywhere. The one said, ‘Shall I undo the tent?’ ‘Lord, no!’ said the other, ‘on a night like this.’ The third said, as he counted up their money, ‘These pigs do not appreciate music, and their women dance like bears. Luckily, be- fore the month is up we shall be in Austria, where the folk are pleasanter.’ “ ‘Perhaps we should do better to go down to Spain; the year is getting on,’ says one of the others. ‘Let us run away from the rain and get nothing wet but our throats!’