In a little town close to Prague lived a daughter of a rich noblemen, and she fell greatly in love to a poor yeoman. He had only a little hut, a few small fields beyond the forest, and a good heart; he wanted to marry the nobleman's daughter, but the rich father had him chased out of his premises by a pack of dogs; and because the beautiful girl did not want to give her loved one up, the nobleman hardened his hear and sent her to a convent of the Blessed An�zka in Old Town in Prague.

The young nun did not want to spend her entire life by praying though; she cried and refused to live according to the orders of the convent, until the compassionate nuns took pity on her and sent a message to her father to take her back.

The nobleman became enraged and travelled to Prague. He took a lodging in an Old Town's inn, but just as he was about to go see his daughter, he saw the poor yeoman at the door. It occurred to him right away that the poor man is arranging something bad, so he stepped back into a shadow and from that moment on, he followed the young man's every step. He didn't have to wait for long: the very first evening the yeoman left his room at dusk and took the shortest route to the convent.

The nobleman followed him all the way to the walls of the convent garden; there he hid himself and waited for what will happen next. For a while the young man walked impatiently back and forth, then a little white scarf appeared between the branches above the crest on the wall and soon thereafter the shadow of a veiled girl's figure. The yeoman then climbed up on the stone knobs and helped the girl to descend down into the street.

Father realised that he is looking at the kidnapping of his daughter. In great anger he rushed out of his hiding place, knocked down the yeoman and his daughter by the stab of his sword, and pronounced a curse above the dying girl, so that the unfortunate one would have to suffer even after death, until the very building of the convent turns into dust.

When at dawn the neighbours found the bodies of both lovers, the girl was already cold as ice, but the young man was still breathing. They called a doctor; he dressed his wound and took care of him for so long until the yeoman had became cured of his injuries. He returned, pale and sad, to his country castle; there he lived for many years alone and alone, in the memories of his lost love and in poverty, which in the end had tormented him to death.

The nuns buried the unfortunate girl in the convent, prayed for her evening after evening, but they couldn't overturn her father's curse: every night, the shadow of the slain girl had walked around the convent's halls and garden and cried, until one's heart hurt. And it wandered like that long after the convent was abolished and the nuns had scattered all over the land.

Time passed, old walls had grown covered with moss, and the former convent garden now became a woodcutters' fence yard, where instead of roses one could smell resin from freshly cut wood.

At the other side of the fence yard stood a short house with a window as small as the palm of a hand, and beyond that window lived a beautiful young girl.

She was as beautiful as a rose from the convent's garden, but by the same measure of her beauty she was also poor. And, as it often happens in the world, she fell in love with a boy who had to reach just as deep into his pocket as she did, but nevertheless at least sometimes a little something had clinked in there. His father had a little workshop two steps wide and three steps long, but because for his whole life he struggled through hardships and poverty, he wished for a better livelihood at least for his son. When he saw that his boy had fallen in love with a girl poorer than he was himself, he became badly angered, hardened his heart and forbade him to meet with her again.

The girl saw that luck had turned its back on her, and for a long time she suffered over her beloved one. Everyone was cheering her up, telling her that she would forget after time passes, but she wasn't forgetting, and was becoming sadder and sadder, until one evening she decided that she will rather die than to live without the one who she loved most in the entire world.

It was evening; the poor one had mixed some poison for herself and with the flask in her hand she went to the window and for a long time was looking into the garden, where the wind was chasing armfuls of snow. She stared into that white twilight, tears were flowing down her face and her heart was breaking from grief. Suddenly, she saw a figure in the yard, wearing a grey habit, sort of the style that nuns wear; in the first moment she thought that it is only a delusion of the senses, only a phantasm in the falling whirlpool of snow, but the phantasm had changed into a human figure and it walked through the deep snow-drifts straight to her window.

Then the window flew open by the sudden draught and cold air blew into the room. The grey figure tore the flask of poison out of the girl's hot hand and threw it with a great distance into the snow. Before the girl had recovered herself, the strange figure had slipped back out into the snowstorm and disappeared in the rush of snow, which kept falling and falling, as if it was supposed to fall until the end of the world.

For a long time, the young girl stood by the window as a statue; she thought about what had happened and in the end she decided that she will keep on living.

But it was a sad life: the craftsman's son had only from time to time appeared at the corner of the street and shyly waited, so that he could see her at least for a little while, but he couldn't talk to her anymore, because his father had forbidden it. The girl suffered, cried through whole evenings, and at night when she couldn't fall asleep, she stood for hours and hours by the window facing the garden and stared into the dark, as if she was waiting for a miracle.

The spring came, snow in the garden melted, violets had sprung up by the garden's wall; summer came and heaps of fragrant wood were piling up in the yard; after some time they were covered with yellow leafs and eventually even the leafs had been covered by snow. Again the frost fell, snowstorm raged above the garden and the wind whistled in the deserted corners. The little window had frozen with hoarfrost and the girl couldn't even look into the dark and at the snowdrifts; she breathed out a little circle on the glass but it froze again and again; she sat on a chair in the middle of the room with a sunken head and felt lonesome, as if she was all alone in the whole world.

One evening, her face was fanned in an icy draught; she lifted up her head, the window was wide open and beyond it the snow was falling. From the snowy whirl a grey figure suddenly emerged and slipped inside into the room, for a while she looked into the girl's face, and then she placed on her lap a little purse, tied up with a red ribbon.

The girl jumped up, the purse fell to her feet and quietly tinkled, the figure in grey turned around and disappeared, as if she never was here; only beyond the window the snow fell and whirled in the wind.

The girl closed the window, lit up the lamp, picked up the little purse and poured out its contents into her palm. It was golden coins - just the same amount of money that the bridegroom's father had demanded of his bride.

She put the money on the table, covered her eyes with the palms of her hands and bitterly wept: what is money useful to her now that her loved one has long forgotten her!

She cried and cried, until unexpectedly the door opened and at the door stood the one who still hadn't forgot. He embraced her, wiped the tears from her face and said:

"Happen what will, we two will never part anymore: we have healthy hands and somehow we'll make it through. What will the money be useful to us for if we lacked the most important thing?"

The girl had shown him the little purse with red ribbon and told him about everything: about the snow in the garden, about the bottle of poison, about the long waiting, about the strange visit and about that whole eternally sad period of time.

Soon thereafter they were married, had a little heap of children and lived together happily.

Only the apparition of the young nun in the grey habit wanders around the little streets and quietly weeps over its ruined life; months alternate, grass sprouts up between the rocks, then it's burned by the sun, buried under the yellowing leafs, and in the end under the snow, but that hushing weeping doesn't stop and is heard on windy nights again and again.