d called up questions of this sort; and as I
looked at it many different thoughts came into my mind. Perhaps, I
thought to myself, a childless fellow, who spoiled old age with sighs
and complaints, and as his life waned the walls mouldered. Finally, the
house was without a master; the doors and windows stood open, and when
the dark winter nights came on, the neighbors fell upon it and stripped
off its boards, one after another. Yes, various thoughts came into my
head. How hard it is to build a house, and how easy to tear it down!

While I stood there lost in thought, an old woman, leaning on a staff,
passed me. I did not immediately recognize her, but at a second glance I
saw it was Hripsime. Nurse Hripsime was a woman of five-and-seventy,
yet, from her steady gait, her lively speech, and her fiery eyes, she
appeared to be scarcely fifty. She was vigorous and hearty, expressed
her opinions like a man, and was abrupt in her speech. Had she not worn
women's garments one could easily have taken her for a man. Indeed, in
conversation she held her own with ten men.

Once, I wot not for what reason, she was summoned to court. She went
thither, placed herself before the judge, and spoke so bravely that
everyone gaped and stared at her as at a prodigy. Another time thieves
tried to get into her house at night, knowing that she was alone like an
owl in the house. The thieves began to pry open the door with a crowbar,
and when Nurse Hripsime heard it she sprang nimbly out of bed, seized
her stick from its corner, and began to shout: "Ho, there! Simon,
Gabriel, Matthew, Stephan, Aswadur, get up quickly. Get your axes and
sticks. Thieves are here; collar the rascals; bind them, skin them,
strike them dead!" The thieves probably did not know with whom they had
to deal, and, when at the outcry of the old woman they conceived that a
half-dozen stout-handed fellows might be in the house, they took
themselves off. Just such a cunning, fearless woman was Aunt Hripsime.

"Good-morning, nurse," said I.

"God greet thee," she replied.

"Where have you been?"

"I have been with the sick," she rejoined.

Oh, yes! I had wholly forgotten to say that Nurse Hripsime, though she
could neither read nor write, was a skilful physician. She laid the sick
person on the grass, administered a sherbet, cured hemorrhoids and
epilepsy; and especially with sick women was she successful. Yes, to her
skill I myself can bear witness. About four years ago