As there are many in the world, and as we are many of us, there was
a mother who had a son. They were very poor. The son wished to go
off somewhere, in order to better himself, (he said); that it was
not living to live like that. The mother was sorry; but what could
she do? In order that her son may be better off, she lets him go. He
goes then, travelling on, and on, and on. In a forest he meets with a
gentleman, who asks him where he is going. He tells him that, wishing
to better himself, he had gone away from home to do something. This
gentleman asks him if he is willing to be his servant. He replies,
"Yes." They go off then together, and come to a beautiful place. After
having entered, the gentleman gives him all the keys of the house,
saying that he has a journey he must make, and that he must see the
whole house--that he will find in it everything he wants to eat,
and to take care of the horses in the stable. The gentleman goes
away as soon as he had seen all the house and the stable. There were
a lot of horses there, and in the midst of them all a white mare,
[109] who said to him,
"Ay! ay! Fidel, save me, I pray you, from here, and get me outside. You
will not be sorry for it."
Fidel stops at the place whence this voice came. A moment after,
the white mare says to him,
"Come near the white mare; it is she who is speaking to you."
Fidel goes up to her, and says to her that he cannot let her go--that
the master has not given him any other work to do (than to take care
of the horses), and that he certainly will not do any such thing. The
mare said to him,
"Go and fetch a saucepan, and when I shall have filled it with water,
you will wash your hands and your head."
Fidel does as the mare told him, and is quite astonished at seeing
his hands shine, and he says to her that he does not wish to have
them like that, but that, as to his head, he could hide it. [110]
The mare told him to wash his hands in the water, and that they would
become again as they were before.
The time goes on, and the time returns. A long time had passed,
and the master had never returned. And one day the mare said to him,
"Fidel, do you know how long you have been here?"