She could move her eyes about, and see all the misery around her, but she could not turn her head; and when she saw the people looking at her she thought they were admiring her pretty face and fine clothes, for she was still vain and proud. But she had forgotten how soiled her clothes had become while in the Marsh Woman’s brewery, and that they were covered with mud; a snake had also fastened itself in her hair, and hung down her back, while from each fold in her dress a great toad peeped out and croaked like an asthmatic poodle. Worse than all was the terrible hunger that tormented her, and she could not stoop to break off a piece of the loaf on which she stood. No; her back was too stiff, and her whole body like a pillar of stone. And then came creeping over her face and eyes flies without wings; she winked and blinked, but they could not fly away, for their wings had been pulled off; this, added to the hunger she felt, was horrible torture.
“If this last much longer,” she said, “I shall not be able to bear it.” But it did last, and she had to bear it, without being able to help herself.
A tear, followed by many scalding tears, fell upon her head, and rolled over her face and neck, down to the loaf on which she stood. Who could be weeping for Ingé? She had a mother in the world still, and the tears of sorrow which a mother sheds for her child always find their way to that child’s heart, but they often increase the torment instead of being a relief. And Ingé could hear all that was said about her in the world she had left, and every one seemed cruel to her. The sin she had committed in treading on the loaf was known on earth, for she had been seen by the cowherd from the hill, when she was crossing the marsh and had disappeared.
When her mother wept and exclaimed, “Ah, Ingé! what grief thou hast caused thy mother!” she would say, “O that I had never been born! My mother’s tears are useless now.”
And then the words of the kind people who had adopted her came to her ears, when they said, “Ingé was a sinful girl, who did not value the gifts of God, but trampled them under her feet.”
“Ah,” thought Ingé, “they should have punished me, and driven all my naughty tempers out of me.”
A song was made about “The girl who trod on a loaf to keep her shoes from being soiled;” and this song was sung everywhere. The story of her sin was also told to the little children, and they called her “wicked Ingé,” and said she was so naughty she ought to be punished. Ingé heard all this, and her heart became hardened and full of bitterness.
But one day, while hunger and grief were gnawing in her hollow frame, she heard a little, innocent child, while listening to the tale of the vain, haughty Ingé, burst into tears and exclaim, “But will she never come up again?”
And she heard the reply, “No, she will never come up again.”
“But if she were to say she was sorry, and ask pardon, and promise never to do so again?” asked the little one.
“Yes, then she might come; but she will not beg pardon,” was the answer.
