"Don't be afraid," said the eagle, "because of the two faces neither remains. They have just been smashed up against the stones, and he will never torment anybody any more."
The children returned to their homes, where their coming was celebrated with great feasts, and Claudio's grandmother, when she heard what had happened, after welcoming him on his return, only said to him:
"Do you want to see the man with two faces again?"
THE TREACHERY OF MICIFUF
Rather more than a fortnight ago an importunate guest disturbed my quiet and would not leave me in peace during those tranquil hours of the night which I am accustomed to spend in work.
You will say that I ought to have got rid of him. Nothing more simple, apparently, than to seize the disturbing guest and to put him on his feet in the street, saying to him: "Good friend, do me the favour not to come back to this house while I live in it and while you behave so badly."
But with my guest there is no reasoning at all. I begged him, with the most delicate phrases from the book of courtesy, to go away, or not to make a noise. On seeing his insistence, I reached, by degrees, from the simple threat of dismissal to the terrible one (it frightens me to remember!) of dealing him a vile and treacherous death. To such a point does hastiness on occasions blind us! Even to crime!
And to any one in the same circumstances I suspect the same thing would occur.
Because what he does is so irritating. At the moment when I compose myself for writing, at that very moment he makes an unbearable noise that gets on my nerves and prevents me from writing calmly a single line, and from even putting together my ideas. When, tired of the torture, I throw down my pen and go to bed, the mocking noise at once ceases as if by magic, and the silence of the dead, or of those who work, reigns again in my room.
But there is still more! As I leave them scattered on the table, my poor papers appear the following morning as if they were the remains of a kite, crumpled and even torn, turning my writing to strange hieroglyphics, incapable of being read, and my books, my poor books, which are so dear to me, they are cut as if with a saw, covers and all!