Then the others fell upon him and asked him if he thought that that was happiness, to be eaten by one’s wife on the morning after the wedding. And he didn’t know what to answer, for his romance wasn’t so very real, after all.
The mouse stole away dejectedly and went to her hole. She took the thing to heart as though it had happened in her own family. The goat’s-foot and the parsley hung their screens and felt sheepish and ashamed in the face of the twigs on the stubs. And so great was their overthrow that even the twigs thought it would be a shame to scoff at them.
But, one day, when there was a blazing sun and the spider had crawled as far as she could into the shade of the leaf, the parsley bent down to the mouse’s hole and whispered:
“What is it?” asked the mouse and came out.
“It’s only the goat’s-foot and I who have something to ask you,” said the parsley. “Tell me--you’re so clever--don’t you believe that it’s possible that the spider may become a different person when she begins to lay her eggs?”
“I believe nothing now,” said the mouse. “I shall never believe that that woman will ever lay eggs.”
One fine morning, she began and behaved in such a way that no one in the hedge ever forgot the story:
“Ugh!” she said. “That one should be bothered with this nonsense with children now!”
She laid a heap of ten eggs and stood looking at them, angrily.
“Build a nest for your eggs,” said the parsley. “All that we have and possess is at your disposal.”
“Sit on them and hatch them,” said the goat’s-foot. “We will weave a roof over you, so the sun won’t inconvenience you in the least.”
“Lay up some small flies for the children, for when they come out,” said the mouse. “You have no idea what those young ones can eat.”
“Practise singing to them a bit,” said the twigs on the stubs.
She laid four more heaps. Then she began to spin a fine, close covering of white threads to wrap each heap in separately.
“She’s not quite heartless,” said the mouse.
The spider took a heap, went down the hedge and buried it in the ground. Then up again for the next heap and so on until all the five heaps were buried.
“There!” she said. “Now that’s done with! And they won’t catch me at it again. Now at least I am a free and independent woman once more.”