But the young men were not at all kind. They said, “Old fool! Why is your ugly body covered with all these clothes?”
He said, “I am very old. I feel the cold. I cannot get warm.”
They answered, “Why have you lived so long, you ugly old man? Why don’t you die?”
The old man looked at them angrily. He said, “I live like this because I cannot find any young man who will change with me. No young man wants to become old. So I must become older and older. Death will not come and take me, so I go up and down the country. I am an unhappy traveler looking for Death. I say to the ground under my feet: Dear Mother Earth, let me come in! Oh, Mother Earth, I want to lay myself down in you and rest for ever!’ But she will not be kind to me. That is why I am old – so very old.”