But Ilyás smiled and said:
"If I should tell you about my happiness and unhappiness, you would not believe me,—you had better ask my wife. She is a woman, and what is in her heart is on her tongue: she will tell you all the truth about this matter."
And the guest spoke to her behind the curtain:
"Well, granny, tell us how you judge about your former happiness and present sorrow."
And Sham-shemagi spoke from behind the curtain:
"I judge like this: My husband and I lived for fifty years trying to find happiness, and we did not find it; but now it is the second year that we have nothing left and that we live as labourers, and we have found that happiness and need no other."
The guests were surprised and the master marvelled, and he even got up to throw aside the curtain and to look at the old woman. But the old woman was standing with folded hands, smiling and looking at her husband, and the old man was smiling, too. The old woman said once more:
"I am telling you the truth, without any jest: for half a century we tried to find happiness, and so long as we were rich, we did not find it; now nothing is left, and we are working out,—and we have come to have such happiness that we wish for no other.".
"Wherein does your happiness lie?"
"In this: when we were rich, my husband and I did not have an hour's rest: we had no time to talk together, to think of our souls, or to pray. We had so many cares! Now guests called on us,—and there were the cares about what to treat them to and what presents to make so that they should not misjudge us. When the guests left, we had to look after the labourers: they thought only of resting and having something good to eat, but we cared only about having our property attended to,—and so sinned. Now we were afraid that a wolf would kill a colt or a calf, and now that thieves might drive off a herd. When we lay down to sleep, we could not fall asleep, fearing lest the sheep might crush the lambs. We would get up in the night and walk around; no sooner would we be quieted than we would have a new care,—how to get fodder for the winter. And, worse than that, there was not much agreement between my husband and me. He would say that this had to be done so and so, and I would say differently, and so we began to quarrel, and sin. Thus we lived from one care to another, from one sin to another, and saw no happy life."