No envy is more mean than that of small-minded beings when they see a neighbour lifted, as though borne aloft by angels, out of the dull drudgery of their common existence; petty spirits are more ready to forgive a prince the most fabulous wealth rather than a fellow-sufferer beneath the same yoke the smallest degree of freedom. The staff of Kekesfalva had been unable to suppress their fury at the fact that this North German woman of all people, who, as they clearly remembered, had often had comb and brush thrown at her head when she was doing the irascible old Princess’s hair, should now
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