It was a very pleasant
life indeed. No labour to be done, no tasks to be studied; nothing but
sports and dances, and sweet voices of children talking, or carolling
like birds, or gushing out in merry laughter, throughout the livelong
day.
What was most wonderful of all, the children never quarrelled among
themselves; neither had they any crying fits; nor, since time first
began, had a single one of these little mortals ever gone apart into a
corner, and sulked. Oh, what a good time was that to be alive in! The
truth is, those ugly little winged monsters, called Troubles, which are
now almost as numerous as mosquitoes, had never yet been seen on the
earth. It is probable that the very greatest disquietude which a child
had ever experienced was Pandora's vexation at not being able to
discover the secret of the mysterious box.
This was at first only the faint shadow of a Trouble; but, every day, it
grew more and more substantial, until, before a great while, the cottage
of Epimetheus and Pandora was less sunshiny than those of the other
children.
"Whence can the box have come?" Pandora continually kept saying to
herself and to Epimetheus. "And what in the world can be inside of it?"
"Always talking about this box!" said Epimetheus, at last; for he had
grown extremely tired of the subject. "I wish, dear Pandora, you would
try to talk of something else.
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