"Why that heavy sigh?"

"Ah! life is a burden: I'm the most harassed mortal in the world. The
pettiest office-clerk may now be abed in peace, and needn't break off
his sleep, while I must go out and brave wind and weather."

"Be content," replied his wife: "why, I dreamt you had actually been
made magistrate, and wore something on your head like a king's crown."

"Oh! you women; as though what you see isn't enough, you like to chatter
about what you dream."

"Light the lamp, too," said his wife, "and I'll get up and make you a
nice porridge."

The peasant, putting a candle in his lantern, went to the stable; and
after he had given some fodder to the horses, he seated himself upon the
manger. With his hands squeezed between his knees and his head bent
down, he reflected over and over again what a wretched existence he had
of it. "Why," thought he, "are so many men so well-off, so comfortable,
whilst you must be always toiling? What care I if envy be not a
virtue?--and yet I'm not envious, I don't grudge others being well-off,
only I should like to be well-off too; oh, for a quiet, easy life! Am
I not worse off than a horse? He gets his fodder at the proper time, and
takes no care about it. Why did my father make my brother a minister?
He gets his salary without any trouble, sits in a warm room, has no care
in the world; and I must slave and torment myself."

Strange to say, his very next thought, that he would like to be made