13
I thought I must be dreaming such a sight as this, and rubbed my eyelids with my fingers, not believing that I had seen with my own waking eyes. When I had at length with difficulty convinced myself that I was not asleep, I forthwith begged Palaistra to anoint me, too, with that drug, and feather me and let me fly; for I wanted to learn by experiment whether if my human shape was altered I should have the mind, too, of a bird. She stealthily opened the bedroom door and brought the box. I had already made haste to strip, and I anointed myself from head to toe. But alas, alack! I did not become a bird! No; a tail grew out on me behind, my fingers and toes disappeared somehow, my nails reduced themselves to four and were nothing more nor less than hoofs, my hands and feet became the feet of a beast of burden, my ears grew long, and my face enormous. When I surveyed myself all over I saw that I was an ass, but I had no human voice left wherewith to blame Palaistra. However, I stretched out my lower lip, and by my shape itself and by my sidelong asinine glance I reproached her as well as I could for having made me an ass instead of a bird.
14
She smote her face with both hands. "Wretched girl that I am," she cried, "what a dreadful thing I have done! In my hurry I blundered, because the boxes were so alike, and brought the wrong one, not the one that makes feathers grow. But cheer up, do, sweetheart! There is a very easy cure for this. You have only to eat some roses, and the beast will immediately fall from you and you will give me back my lover. Only stay this one night, dear, in the ass, and at daybreak I will run and fetch you some roses, and you will eat them and be cured." While she spoke thus she stroked my ears and the rest of my hide.
