Like many others in the world, there was a man and woman, labourers,
who lived by their toil. They were at ease. They had a mule, and the
man lived by his mule carrying wine. Sometimes he was a week away from
home. He always went to the same inn, where there was a woman and her
daughter. One day the labourer sets off with his loaded mule, and his
wife was very near her confinement. She was expecting it hourly; but,
as he had orders upon orders, he was obliged to set off. He goes then,
and comes to this inn. It was a market-day, and they had not kept a
bedroom for him as usual, because there were so many people there,
and he is put into a dark room without windows near the kitchen. He
had not yet gone to sleep, when he hears the woman say to her daughter,
"You are not aware that the wife of the man who is there is
confined? Go and see if he is asleep."
When the man heard that, he began to snore; and when the young girl
heard through a slit in the door that he was snoring, she said to
her mother,
"Yes, yes, he is asleep."