"Living isn't easy, but dying isn't either."
"I thought I would die lying in this armchair, but-"
"But-" Her tone suddenly brightened. "That day, I saw someone climb over the fence to steal things!"
She turned her head and flashed a mischievous smile.
Beside her, Clara reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, her face instantly flushing red.
She waved her little hands, her voice hurried and embarrassed. "I-it wasn't really stealing! I saw how beautifully the winter sweet was blooming in the yard! So full of life! All alone with nobody to admire it-I just wanted to pick a few sprigs-how can stealing flowers count as stealing things-"
"Besides, I gave you half those flowers-so it doesn't count!"
Elsa did not argue, merely continued her account. "Clara is a little thief. She ran away from the orphanage and went to the market every day to steal some fish. Some could be traded for a few loaves of bread, but most she could only cook and eat herself-oh, and she stole my flowers."
Clara's face grew even redder, and she defended herself in a small voice. "They didn't want those fish. They'd thrown them on the ground-besides, they didn't say anything when I picked them up."
"-Anyway," Elsa's voice grew calm again, "sometimes we had fish, sometimes bread, and sometimes only wild fruit-anyway, that's how we've lived until now. The debt collectors still come banging on the door sometimes, but much less often."
She spoke lightly, but everyone else in the room felt heavyhearted.
The weather had warmed now, but the preceding months had been the dead of winter.
There were only a few tattered blankets in the bedroom. Everything worth even a little money had been carried away. Both were only children, unable to mend the