Once a father was seated at the dinner table with his wife and children. A good friend who had come to visit was eating with them. While they were sitting there the clock struck twelve, and the stranger saw the door open and a very pale little child dressed in snow-white clothes come in. It neither looked around, nor did it speak, but went straight into the next room. Soon afterwards it came back, and just as silently went out the door again.
On the second and on the third day it came back in exactly the same manner. Then the stranger finally asked the father, whose beautiful child it was that went into the next room every day at noon.

    "I did not see it," he said, adding that he did he know whose child it might be.

    The next day when it again came, the stranger pointed it out to the father, but the latter did not see it, nor did the mother and the children see anything. Then the stranger got up, went to the door of the room, opened it a little, and looked in. There he saw the child sitting on the floor, and busily digging and rooting about in the cracks in the floor. When it saw the stranger, it disappeared.

    He now told what he had seen and described the child exactly. Then the mother recognized it, and said, "Oh, it is my dear child who died four weeks ago."

    They ripped up the floor and found two farthings which the child had once received from its mother to give to a poor man. It, however, had thought, 

    "With that money you can buy yourself a piece of zwieback," and had kept the farthings, hiding them in the cracks in the floor.

    Therefore it had had no rest in its grave, and had come every day at noon to look for these farthings. Then the parents gave the money to a poor man, and after that the child was never seen again. 

    一天，一家人和一個(gè)來(lái)訪的好友坐在桌子旁吃午飯，吃著吃著，鐘聲敲響了十二點(diǎn)，這時(shí)客人看到門打開(kāi)了，進(jìn)來(lái)了一個(gè)孩子，他穿著白夾克，臉色有點(diǎn)蒼白。他不看四周，也不說(shuō)一句話，就徑直走進(jìn)了隔壁的房間。不久他又出來(lái)了，同樣一言不發(fā)地走了出去。第二天和第三天，他照樣又來(lái)了。客人問(wèn)這父親每天走進(jìn)隔壁房間的那漂亮的孩子是誰(shuí)？父親說(shuō)：“沒(méi)有看見(jiàn)。也不知道這是誰(shuí)家的孩子。”

    第二天，那孩子又進(jìn)來(lái)了，客人指著給父親看，但他看不見(jiàn)，母親和小孩一樣也看不見(jiàn)。於是客人站了起來(lái)，走到房門旁，開(kāi)了一條縫，往里瞅了瞅。他看那男孩正坐在地上，用手指頭使勁地在地板縫里挖呀挖的，當(dāng)他看見(jiàn)客人時(shí)，就消失了。隨后客人講述了他所看到的一切，并且仔細(xì)描述了那孩子的模樣。于是母親知道了，說(shuō)：“啊呀，那是我親愛(ài)的孩子，四個(gè)星期前死了。”

    于是他們打開(kāi)了地板，找到了兩個(gè)硬幣，那是一次孩子向母親討來(lái)準(zhǔn)備給窮人的。也許小孩那時(shí)想：“我可以用它為自己買塊餅乾。”于是就私自留下了錢，藏在了地板縫里。因?yàn)樗�在墳�(zāi)怪胁坏冒矊帲�所以每天中午�?lái)找那兩枚錢。后來(lái)父母把那錢給了個(gè)窮人，從此以后就再也看不見(jiàn)那小孩了。