“Oh, how do you do?” said Padre Ulivo. “You want me, do you? Well, I was just beginning to fear you had forgotten me, and to wonder where you could be. Sit down and take a rest, and then I’ll come with you.”
So Death sat down on the chair in the chimney-corner, while Padre Ulivo piled on wood and made a splendid blaze.
“Now we must go,” said Death, when he was warm. “Oh, oh! what’s this?” For when he tried to get up the chair stuck to him and he could not move. “Oh, oh!” And he pulled at the chair that seemed glued firmly to him. “Padre Ulivo, let me go! I have to go for the carpenter’s daughter before sundown. Oh, oh! I can’t get up. You’ve bewitched me.”
“Promise not to come back for a hundred years, and you shall go free.”
“A hundred! A hundred and one, if you like! Only take the spell off.”
So Padre Ulivo gave him permission to rise, and Death went away.
✴✴✴✴✴
Things went on as usual for the hundred years, with feasting and merry-making. But at last, as Padre Ulivo was among his friends, Death appeared again.
“Yes, yes, I’m ready. But let us have a feast of figs first. See what splendid fruit there! I and my friends had as much as we wanted yesterday, it’s your turn to-day. Go up and help yourself; I am too old to climb.”