Grown clammy, stick fast in the snow;

Her handkerchief she loses now;

No time to pick it up! afraid,

She hears the bear behind her press,

Nor dares the skirting of her dress

For shame lift up the modest maid.

She runs, the bear upon her trail,

Until her powers of running fail.

XV.

She sank upon the snow. But Bruin

Adroitly seized and carried her;

Submissive as if in a swoon,

She cannot draw a breath or stir.

He dragged her by a forest road

Till amid trees a hovel showed,

By barren snow heaped up and bound,

A tangled wilderness around.

Bright blazed the window of the place,

Within resounded shriek and shout:

"My chum lives here," Bruin grunts out.

"Warm yourself here a little space!"

Straight for the entrance then he made

And her upon the threshold laid.

XVI.

Recovering, Tania gazes round;

Bear gone - she at the threshold placed;

Inside clink glasses, cries resound

As if it were some funeral feast.

But deeming all this nonsense pure,

She peeped through a chink of the door.

What doth she see? Around the board

Sit many monstrous shapes abhorred.

A canine face with horns thereon,

Another with cock's head appeared,

Here an old witch with hirsute beard,