The father says, “It is I. I must come in.”
“It is impossible,” says the spittle again.
The father grows more and more angry; the spittle makes him stop an hour like that at the door. At last, not being able to do anything else, he smashes the door, and goes inside. What is his terrible rage when he sees the room empty. He goes off to his wife, and says to her:
“You were not mistaken; they were well acquainted, and they were really in league with one another, and they have both escaped together; but I will not leave them like that. I will go off after them, and I shall find them sooner or later.”
He starts off. Our gentleman and lady had gone very far, but the young lady was still afraid. She said to her husband:
“He might overtake us even now. I—I cannot turn my head; but (look) if you can see something.”
The husband says to her: “Yes, something terrible is coming after us; I have never seen a monster like this.”
The young lady throws up a comb, and says:[57]
“Comb, with thy power, let there be formed before my father hedges and thorns, and before me a good road.”
It is done as she wished. They go a good way, and she says again: