t about trees exactly, but it all took place in a
deep forest that spread around a wonderful city. From the high white walls
of the town one could look out over the green tops of the trees as you
look down on the grass, and that was a marvellous sight. There was a
single road that ran through the forest right up to the gate of the city;
but it was a hard road to travel, dark most of the time because the sun
could not shine through the leaves, and very lonely, and so still that you
could hear your heart beat except when the winds blew, and then sometimes
the boughs clashed together overhead and roared and moaned until you
longed for the silence again. It was a long road too, and the men who
walked through the forest to the city all had great packs on their
shoulders. And what do you suppose was in their packs? Why, every
traveller carried with him a gorgeous suit of clothes heavy with velvet
and gold and silver; for so the people dressed in the beautiful city, and
no one could enter the gate unless he too bore with him the royal robes.
But you see, while they were walking in the rough forest, they wore their
old clothes of course.

Now in one place a wonderful woman sat by the roadside. She was a maga, or
witch, named Simona. She was beautiful if you did not see her too close,
with large round eyes that looked very gentle and kind. And when any
traveller came by, the big tears would begin to roll down her cheeks and
she would cry out to him as if she pitied him and wanted to help him.

"Dear traveller," she would say, "why do you trudge along this gloomy
road, and why do you carry that bundle which bends your shoulders and
tires your back? Don't you know that it is all a lie about the city you
are seeking? There is no city of palaces at your journey's end. Indeed,
you will never get to the end of the woods, but will walk on and on,
stumbling and falling, and growing weaker and weaker, until at last you
fall and never rise. And the wild beasts that you hear at night howling in
the bushes will rend and gnaw your body until only your bones are left."

At this the travellers would stop and say: "But what shall we do, wise
witch, and whither shall we go?"

Then she would say to them: "Turn aside by this pleasant path, and in a
little while you will come to my beautiful garden which is named
Philanthropia. There you will find many others whom I have wept for and
saved as I do you; and there amid the open glades you may live