Then he started praying: “God, God! I want money! God! Give me money!”

While his voice rang out and his lips moved, he was thinking all the time about what he would do when he was rich.  After the same number of days that she herself had prayed, the old woman arrived at his house.  She climbed up the ladder to the attic.  She dropped the sack down on her neighbor while he was in bed, just as he had done to her and just as he had asked her to do.  But, unfortunately, the heavy sack hit one of his ribs and broke it.

The sack’s contents never turned into gold.  The neighbor spent all his money on doctors’ fees, and when at last the rib was healed, he was a poor man.  He had to walk with a stick and suffered from pain in his side forever after.  Unable to work, he became as poor as the old woman had been.

Jan Knappert, a frequent contributor and special adviser to the Culture section of
THE WORLD & I since the magazine’s inception, has published more than thirty books.