The Black Spider

by Jeremias Gotthelf

Much laughter ensued, and she was forced to listen to many a joke about curiosity and the way womenfolk feared it while nonetheless passing it on to all their girls, while it did the boys no harm at all. Everyone agreed the godmother needn’t have worried about asking.

They began to calculate how much more all of them together were worth than a single unbaptized child, gradually forgetting that a crime against a soul weighs a thousand times heavier than saving even thousands and thousands of human lives.

Then they heard that the priest had died, covered in black blisters, Hans was found with his horrible face, and there was strange, confused talk of the terrible spider into which Christine had been transformed.