I lay on my bed of straw, but sleep would not come.
I kept thinking about everything I had seen that day.
More than anything else, I could not stop thinking about the kindness of the people in the cottage. I desperately wanted to be close to them.
But I was afraid.
I remembered the villagers who had attacked me the night before.
I had no idea how these people would react if they saw me.
So I made a decision.
For now, I would stay hidden in my little shelter. I would watch them carefully and try to understand why they behaved the way they did.
The next morning, the family woke before sunrise.
The young woman immediately began cleaning the cottage and preparing breakfast.
After they ate, the young man left the house.
The day followed almost exactly the same pattern as the one before.
The young man spent most of his time working outside.
The young woman was constantly busy with chores inside the cottage.
The old man, whom I soon realized was blind, spent his quiet hours playing his musical instrument or sitting peacefully by the fire.
What impressed me most was the love the two younger people showed him.
They treated him with extraordinary patience and tenderness.
They helped him with even the smallest things.
Whenever they did something for him, he rewarded them with a warm smile.
Yet despite their kindness toward one another, I noticed that they were not happy.
Sometimes the young man and the young woman would leave the old man’s side and sit somewhere alone.
More than once, I saw them crying.
I could not understand why.
It troubled me deeply.
If people as kind and beautiful as them could be unhappy, then perhaps there was no hope for someone like me.
Still, I could not understand their sadness.
They had a beautiful home.
They had a warm fire.
They had food to eat.
They had good clothes.
Most importantly, they had each other.
They spoke together every day and constantly showed one another affection.
So why did they cry?
What could their tears mean?
At first, I had no answer.
But I kept watching.
Little by little, time revealed the truth.
The family was poor.
Very poor.
Their garden provided most of their food, and they depended heavily on the milk from a single cow.
During the winter, the cow produced very little milk, and the family sometimes struggled just to find enough food to keep it alive.
I began to notice something that touched me deeply.
When food was scarce, the young man and the young woman sometimes gave their food to the old man and ate nothing themselves.
They would place the meal in front of him and quietly go without.
I admired them more than I could express.
Until then, I had often stolen some of their food during the night because I was hungry.
But once I realized that my theft was making their lives even harder, I stopped.
From then on, I survived on berries, nuts, and roots that I found in the nearby forest.
Then I discovered another way to help them.
The young man spent a large part of every day collecting firewood.
At night, when everyone was asleep, I secretly took his tools.
I had already learned how to use them.
I went into the forest and collected enough wood to keep the family warm for several days.
The first time I did this, something interesting happened.
The next morning, the young woman opened the door and saw a huge pile of firewood outside.
She stared at it in surprise.
“What happened?” she seemed to ask.
The young man came outside.
He looked equally confused.
They examined the wood and then looked around, apparently trying to understand where it had come from.
I watched them from my hiding place.
I was delighted.
That day, the young man did not go into the forest.
Instead, he spent the day repairing the cottage and working in the garden.
My small act of kindness had made his life a little easier.
But I was about to discover something far more important.
The family had a way of communicating their thoughts and feelings through spoken sounds.
I had noticed that certain sounds made them smile, while others made them sad or worried.
This seemed almost magical to me.
I desperately wanted to understand it.
But learning their language was much harder than I had imagined.
They spoke quickly.
The sounds seemed to have no obvious connection to the things around them.
I could see the objects they were talking about, but I could not understand which sounds represented which objects.
Still, I refused to give up.
I watched them constantly.
After many weeks of careful observation, I finally began to understand some of their simplest words.
I learned the words for things I saw every day.
“Fire.”
“Milk.”
“Bread.”
“Wood.”
I also learned the names of the people in the cottage.
The young man was called Felix.
The young woman was Agatha.
They sometimes called each other “brother” and “sister.”
And they called the old man “father.”
I cannot describe the joy I felt when I finally understood what those sounds meant.
For the first time, the strange noises coming from human mouths began to have meaning.
I also recognized other words, although I did not yet fully understand them.
Words like “good,” “dearest,” and “unhappy.”
I spent the entire winter learning in this way.
The more I watched the family, the more deeply I came to love them.
Their kindness and beauty touched me.
When they were sad, I felt sad.
When they were happy, I felt happy with them.
I rarely saw any other human beings.
Whenever strangers came near the cottage, their rough manners and aggressive behavior made the family seem even more gentle and admirable to me.
The old man often tried to comfort his children.
He would speak to them in a calm, encouraging voice.
Even though I could not understand every word, I could feel the kindness in his voice.
Agatha listened respectfully.
Sometimes tears filled her eyes, and she quickly wiped them away so her father would not notice.
But after listening to him, she always seemed a little happier.
Felix was different.
He was clearly the saddest of the three.
Even with my limited understanding, I could tell that he had suffered terribly.
Yet strangely, when he spoke to his father, his voice was often cheerful and gentle.
I began noticing countless small acts of kindness.
One morning, Felix found the first little white flower growing through the snow.
He picked it and proudly carried it to Agatha.
Before she woke, he often cleared the snow from the path leading to the place where she collected milk.
He drew water from the well.
He brought firewood from the shed.
And every morning, he was amazed to discover that his supply of wood seemed to have magically increased.
Of course, he did not know that I was responsible.
Sometimes Felix worked for a nearby farmer.
On those days he would leave early and return around mealtime without bringing any wood home.
When there was little work to do outside, he stayed at the cottage.
Then he often read aloud to his father and Agatha.
At first, I found this extremely strange.
But eventually I noticed something important.
The sounds Felix made while reading were similar to the sounds he used when speaking.
I began to understand that the marks on the pages must somehow represent spoken words.
I desperately wanted to understand those marks too.
But how could I?
I barely understood the spoken language.
Still, I slowly improved.
I listened every day.
I watched their mouths.
I connected sounds with objects, actions, and feelings.
Yet I knew I still had much more to learn.
I had one important reason for keeping myself hidden.
I wanted to introduce myself to the family.
More than anything, I wanted them to accept me.
But I knew I could not approach them yet.
If I could learn their language first, perhaps I could explain myself.
Perhaps my gentle behavior would make them overlook my terrible appearance.
Until then, I had not fully understood how different I looked from ordinary human beings.
I had admired the family.
Their bodies were graceful.
Their faces were beautiful.
Their skin was delicate.
Then one day, I saw my own reflection in a clear pool.
I froze.
At first, I stepped back in horror.
Surely that hideous creature in the water could not be me.
But it was.
I stared at the reflection for a long time.
The truth finally became impossible to deny.
I was a monster.
The realization filled me with despair.
I had spent so much time admiring the beauty of the family that I had never fully understood how terrifying I must appear beside them.
I had no idea yet how much suffering my appearance would bring me.
As the weather grew warmer and the days became longer, the snow slowly disappeared.
The trees stood bare, and the dark earth appeared beneath them.
Felix became much busier.
The family no longer seemed to be facing starvation.
Their food was simple, but it was healthy, and there was enough of it.
New plants began growing in their garden.
They planted and cared for them carefully.
Every day, their lives became a little more comfortable.
When the weather was dry, the old man went outside at noon.
He usually walked with his son supporting him.
I soon learned that the word “rain” described the water that sometimes fell from the sky.
There was plenty of it during the spring.
But strong winds quickly dried the ground afterward, and the weather became much more pleasant.
My own life followed the same quiet routine.
Every morning, I watched the family.
When they became busy with their work and stopped paying attention to their surroundings, I slept inside my shelter.
The rest of the day, I watched them.
At night, after they had gone to bed, I sometimes went into the forest.
If there was moonlight or enough starlight, I gathered berries, nuts, roots, and firewood for myself.
I also collected wood for the family.
Whenever there was heavy snow, I cleared the path outside their cottage.
I copied the things I had seen Felix doing.
I did everything secretly.
They never saw me.
Instead, they simply found their work mysteriously completed.
Eventually, I heard them talking about it.
“Good spirit.”
“Wonderful.”
They seemed amazed by the strange help they were receiving.
I did not understand those words yet.
But I understood from their voices that they were pleased.
By then, my thoughts had become much more complicated.
I wanted to understand why Felix was so unhappy.
I wanted to know why Agatha often looked so sad.
I wanted to understand what had happened to this gentle family.
And foolishly, I began to believe that perhaps I could make them happy.
When I slept, I dreamed about them.
When I was away from my shelter, I imagined them.
The blind old father.
Gentle Agatha.
Kind Felix.
In my mind, they had become almost like gods who would decide my future.
I imagined walking into their home.
At first, I thought they would be frightened or disgusted by me.
But then I imagined speaking gently to them.
I would explain who I was.
I would show them that I meant no harm.
Perhaps, after they saw my kindness, they would stop being afraid.
Perhaps they would even learn to love me.
These dreams filled me with hope.
They also gave me even more motivation to learn their language.
My voice was rough and unpleasant, but I discovered that I could control it surprisingly well.
Although my voice sounded nothing like theirs, I could pronounce the words I had learned.
I knew I sounded strange.
But I did not believe that made me evil.
I thought of myself as a gentle creature who simply did not know how to behave.
Surely someone who meant no harm deserved kindness rather than violence.
Then spring arrived.
Warm rain fell.
The sun became stronger.
The earth changed almost overnight.
People who had remained indoors during the winter came outside again.
They worked in their fields and gardens.
The birds returned to the trees and began singing more brightly.
New leaves appeared on the branches.
The world seemed to come alive.
I was overwhelmed by its beauty.
Only a short time earlier, everything had been cold, dark, wet, and lifeless.
Now the earth seemed warm and welcoming.
I felt happier than I had ever felt before.
For a while, I forgot the suffering of my past.
The present was peaceful.
And for the first time, I began to believe that my future might contain happiness too.