sal,"
said he, "only I must request one thing of you; that is, that you do not
on any account open this door."

Of course the young wife promised faithfully; but equally, of course,
she could scarcely wait for the moment to come when she might break her
promise. When the Devil had left the house the next morning, under
pretence of going hunting, she ran hastily to the forbidden door, opened
it, and saw a terrible abyss full of fire that shot up towards her, and
singed the flowers on her bosom. When her husband came home and asked
her whether she had kept her promise, she unhesitatingly said "Yes;" but
he saw by the flowers that she was telling a lie, and said: "Now I will
not put your curiosity to the test any longer. Come with me. I will show
you myself what is behind the door." Thereupon he led her to the door,
opened it, gave her such a push that she fell down into hell, and shut
the door again.

A few months after he wooed the next sister for his wife, and won her;
but with her everything that had happened with the first wife was
exactly repeated.

Finally he courted the third sister. She was a prudent maiden, and said
to herself: "He has certainly murdered my two sisters; but then it is a
splendid match for me, so I will try and see whether I cannot be more
fortunate than they." And accordingly she consented. After the wedding
the bridegroom gave her a beautiful bouquet, but forbade her, also, to
open the door which he pointed out.

Not a whit less curious than her sisters, she, too, opened the forbidden
door when the Devil had gone hunting, but she had previously put her
flowers in water. Then she saw behind the door the fatal abyss and her
sisters therein. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "poor creature that I am; I
thought I had married an ordinary man, and instead of that he is the
Devil! How can I get away from him?" She carefully pulled her two
sisters out of hell and hid them. When the Devil came home he
immediately looked at the bouquet, which she again wore on her bosom,
and when he found the flowers so fresh he asked no questions; but
reassured as to his secret, he now, for the first time, really loved
her.

After a few days she asked him if he would carry three chests for her to
her parents' house, without putting them down or resting on the way.
"But," she added, "you must keep your word, for I shall be watching
you." The Devil promised to do exactly as she wished. So the next
morning she put one of her sist