him as though its beams were strong ropes
dragging him up, and he had to go and peep through the key-hole. There
he felt the sort of feeling we have looking at the great rolling sea in
a storm, and he burst into tears. He could not himself say why he wept,
but in spite of his tears he felt quite happy. How beautiful it must be
to sit under that tree with the student, but that he could not do; he
had to content himself with the key-hole and be happy there!

There he stood out on the cold landing, the autumn wind blowing through
the cracks of the floor. It was cold--very cold, but he first found it
out when the light in the attic was put out and the music in the wood
died away. Ah! then it froze him, and he crept down again into his warm
corner; there it was comfortable and cosy.

When Christmas came, and with it the jam with the large lump of butter,
ah! then the grocer was first with him.

But in the middle of the night the Goblin awoke, hearing a great noise
and knocking against the shutters--people hammering from outside. The
watchman was blowing his horn: a great fire had broken out; the whole
town was in flames.

Was it in the house? or was it at a neighbour's? Where was it?

The alarm increased. The grocer's wife was so terrified that she took
her gold earrings out of her ears and put them in her pocket in order
to save something. The grocer seized his account books. and the maid her
black silk dress.

Everyone wanted to save his most valuable possession; so did the Goblin,
and in a few leaps he was up the stairs and in the student's room. He
was standing quietly by the open window looking at the fire that was
burning in the neighbour's house just opposite. The Goblin seized the
book lying on the table, put it in his red cap, and clasped it with both
hands. The best treasure in the house was saved, and he climbed out on
to the roof with it--on to the chimney. There he sat, lighted up by the
flames from the burning house opposite, both hands holding tightly on
his red cap, in which lay the treasure; and now he knew what his heart
really valued most--to whom he really belonged. But when the fire was
put out, and the Goblin thought it over--then--

'I will divide myself between the two,' he said. 'I cannot quite give up
the grocer, because of the jam!'

And it is just the same with us. We also cannot quite give up the
grocer--because of the jam.

The House in the Wood

From the German of Grimm.