ages, and signifies that the woman is going to
be master, and is followed in order to sanction and establish the
rule."

Panfila, for the first time obedient to her mother, did everything
that she had prescribed.

No sooner did the bridegroom espy the branch of consecrated olive in
the hands of his wife, than he attempted to make a precipitous
retreat. But when he found the doors and windows closed, and every
crevice stopped up, seeing no other means of escape than by passing
through the keyhole, he crept into that; this spruce, red-and-white,
and well-spoken bachelor being, as Mother Holofernes had suspected,
neither more nor less than the Evil One himself, who, availing himself
of the right given him by the anathema launched against Panfila by her
mother, thought to amuse himself with the pleasures of a marriage, and
encumber himself with a wife of his own, whilst so many husbands were
supplicating him to take theirs off their hands.

But this gentleman, despite his reputation for wisdom, had met with a
mother-in-law who knew more than he did; and Mother Holofernes was not
the only specimen of that genus. Therefore, scarcely had his lordship
entered into the keyhole, congratulating himself upon having, as
usual, discovered a method of escape, than he found himself in a
phial, which his foreseeing mother-in-law had ready on the other side
of the door; and no sooner had he got into it than the provident old
dame sealed the vessel hermetically. In a most tender voice, and with
most humble supplications, and most pathetic gestures, her son-in-law
addressed her, and desired that she would grant him his liberty. But
Mother Holofernes was not to be deceived by the demon, nor
disconcerted by orations, nor imposed upon by honeyed words; she took
charge of the bottle and its contents, and went off to a mountain. The
old lady vigorously climbed to the summit of this mountain, and there,
on its most elevated crest, in a rocky and secluded spot, deposited
the phial, taking leave of her son-in-law with a shake of her closed
fist as a farewell greeting.

And there his lordship remained for ten years. What years those ten
were! The world was as quiet as a pool of oil. Everybody attended to
his own affairs, without meddling in those of other people. Nobody
coveted the position, nor the wife, nor the property of other persons;
theft became a word without signification; arms rusted; powder was
only consumed in fireworks; prisons st