“the hair on his head and body swelled.” Then sticking the pine splinter into a crack in the floor, the hag took the head at which she had been gazing and, just like an old monkey picking lice from its young, began to pull out the long hairs one by one. They seemed to yield to her pull.
With every hair that came out, the dread seemed to depart appreciably from the heart of the lackey. And at the same time, intense hatred of the old hag was little by little engendered. No, “of the old hag” may not be just the right words. Rather his antipathy to all evil grew stronger every minute. If someone at that time had broached afresh the question which this man had been considering under the gate a little while before, whether he should starve or turn thief, in all likelihood he would have unhesitatingly chosen starvation. Thus fiercely, like the splint of pine the old hag had stuck in the floor, blazed up this man’s detestation of evil.
The lackey, of course, did not know why the old hag was pulling out