”This is a grim tale even for Grimm!” (X. J. Kennedy, Dorothy M. Kennedy or Dana Gioia, 白目真多！)

明天要教 John Updike 的 ”A & P”，課本 (An Introduction to Fiction)指示比較《莊子》秋水十七〈莊子與龜〉、格林兄弟的〈死神乾爹/教父〉、毛姆〈撒馬拉之約〉。好吧！既然故事精采，上課之前不妨自己先樂一下。


Godfather Death
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
A poor man had twelve children and had to work day and night
in order just to feed them. Thus when the thirteenth came into
the world, not knowing what to do in his need, he ran out into
the highway, intending to ask the first person whom he met to
be the godfather.

The first person who came his way was our dear God, who
already knew what was in his heart, and God said to him, ”Poor
man, I pity you. I will hold your child at his baptism, and care
for him, and make him happy on earth.”

The man said, ”Who are you?”
”I am God.”
”Then I do not wish to have you for a godfather,” said the man.
”You give to the rich, and let the poor starve.”

Thus spoke the man, for he did not know how wisely God
divides out wealth and poverty. Then he turned away from the
Lord, and went on his way.

Then the devil came to him and said, ”What are you looking
for? If you will take me as your child’s godfather, I will give
him an abundance of gold and all the joys of the world as
well.”

The man asked, ”Who are you?”
”I am the devil.”
”Then I do not wish to have you for a godfather,” said the man.
You deceive mankind and lead them astray.”

He went on his way, and then Death, on his withered legs,
came walking toward him, and said, ”Take me as your child’s
godfather.”

The man asked, ”Who are you?”
”I am Death, who makes everyone equal.”
Then the man said, ”You are the right one. You take away the
rich as well as the poor, without distinction. You shall be my
child’s godfather.

Death answered, ”I will make your child rich and famous, for
he who has me for a friend cannot fail.”
The man said, ”Next Sunday is the baptism. Be there on time.”

Death appeared as he had promised, and served as godfather in
an orderly manner.

After the boy came of age his godfather appeared to him one
day and asked him to go with him. He took him out into the
woods and showed him an herb that grew there, saying, ”Now
you shall receive your godfather’s present. I will turn you into a
famous physician. Whenever you are called to a sick person I
will appear to you. If I stand at the sick person’s head, you may
say with confidence that you can make him well again; then
give him some of this herb, and he will recover. But if I stand
at the sick person’s feet, he is mine, and you must say that he is
beyond help, and that no physician in the world could save
him.

But beware of using this herb against my will, or something
very bad will happen to you.”

It was not long before the young man had become the most
famous physician in the whole world. People said of him, ”He
only needs to look at the sick in order to immediately know
their condition, whether they will regain their health, or are
doomed to die.” And people came to him from far and wide,
taking him to their sick, and giving him so much money that he
soon became a wealthy man.

Now it came to pass that the king became ill. The physician
was summoned and was told to say if a recovery were possible.
However, when he approached the bed, Death was standing at
the sick man’s feet, and so no herb on earth would be able to
help him.

”If I could only deceive death for once,” thought the physician.
”He will be angry, of course, but because I am his godson he
will shut one eye. I will risk it.” He therefore took hold of the
sick man and laid him the other way around, so that Death was
now standing at his head. Then he gave the king some of the
herb, and he recovered and became healthy again.

However, Death came to the physician, made a dark and angry
face, threatened him with his finger, and said, ”You have
betrayed me. I will overlook it this time because you are my
godson, but if you dare to do it again, it will cost you your
neck, for I will take you yourself away with me.”

Soon afterward the king’s daughter became seriously ill. She
was his only child, and he cried day and night until his eyes
were going blind. Then he proclaimed that whosoever rescued
her from death should become her husband and inherit the
crown.

When the physician came to the sick girl’s bed he saw Death at
her feet. He should have remembered his godfather’s warning,
but he was so infatuated by the princess’s great beauty and the
prospect of becoming her husband that he threw all thought to
the winds. He did not see that Death was looking at him
angrily, lifting his hand into the air, and threatening him with
his withered fist. He lifted up the sick girl and placed her head
where her feet had been. Then he gave her some of the herb,
and her cheeks immediately turned red, and life stirred in her
once again.

Death, seeing that he had been cheated out of his property for a
second time, approached the physician with long strides and
said, ”You are finished. Now it is your turn.”

Then Death seized him so firmly with his ice-cold hand that he
could not resist, and led him into an underground cavern.
There the physician saw how thousands and thousands of
candles were burning in endless rows, some large, others
medium-sized, others small. Every instant some died out, and
others were relit, so that the little flames seemed to be jumping
about in constant change.

”See,” said Death, ”these are the life-lights of mankind. The
large ones belong to children, the medium-sized ones to
married people in their best years, and the little ones to old
people. However, even children and young people often have
only a tiny candle.”

”Show me my life-light,” said the physician, thinking that it
still would be very large.
Death pointed to a little stump that was just threatening to go
out, and said, ”See, there it is.”
”Oh, dear godfather,” said the horrified physician, ”light a new
one for me. Do it as a favor to me, so that I can enjoy my life,
and become king and the husband of the beautiful princess.”

”I cannot,” answered Death. ”One must go out before a new
one is lighted.”
”Then set the old one onto a new one that will go on burning
after the old one is finished,” begged the physician.

Death pretended that he was going to fulfill this wish and took
hold of a large new candle, but, desiring revenge, he purposely
made a mistake in relighting it, and the little piece fell down
and went out. The physician immediately fell to the ground,
and he too was now in the hands of Death.


· Source: Der Gevatter Tod, Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales -- Grimms’ Fairy Tales), 7th ed. (Berlin, 1857), no. 44.

· The Grimms’ source: Marie Elisabeth Wild (1794-1867).
This tale was included in the first edition of the Grimms’ Kinder- und
Hausmärchen. However, in the first edition, the story ended with the physician
being shown the life-lights of people on earth. In the second edition
(1819) the Grimms added the conclusion of the physician’s candle being
put out while Death is pretending to light a new candle from the old one.
The Grimms took this new ending from a story in Friedrich Gustav
Schilling’s Neue Abendgenossen (1811).