"Why cannot I go into the house as well?" enquired the girl, impatiently.
"No more of that. Once a year we come here and every time you ask again if you can come in, and every time I tell you that cannot be. And now I tell you once more: it cannot be—and there's an end on't."
"But why may others go in and I not?"
"Why—why! because you are a girl, of course. Leave me in peace. Women have no business in there, they are always so inquisitive, want to know everything and then blab it all out—it is their nature so."
"I'm not like that."
"And then whoever enters here has to swear a frightful oath that he will divulge nothing that he sees. I myself shudder all over when I have to repeat it; it is not fit for the mouth of a woman."
"As if I were afraid of any oath!" cried the girl defiantly. "I would say any thing that a man might say."
"Don't be a fool, Anicza. A girl cannot come in here, because everyone has to strip himself stark naked before he goes out, before the watchman, and then dress himself again. So you see it won't do."
This difficulty appeared insuperable even to the iron will of Anicza. It was a test even she could not submit to. She stamped her foot with rage and uttered again and again the word Dracu, which in Roumanian means nothing less than his highness the devil himself.
Old Onucz and the watchman thereupon laughed heartily, and the same instant the iron door of the building opened and the girl exclaimed joyfully: "Fatia Negra!"