Pretty Michal Part 13

Next morning, pretty Michal had a blue mark under one eye and a wheal on her forehead, and the precious amulet, the amulet she had received from her father as a bridal gift, was no longer round her neck.

"What's the good of you," cried she, addressing the amulet, "if you cannot defend me? How can you save me from the Black Death when you cannot save me from the hand of man?"

Then she took the dove which she had brought with her from home, and said to it:

"It is all your fault! Why was my heart so soft on your account, why had I not the courage to kill you there and then? If I had wrung your neck, plucked your feathers, stuck you on a spit and carved you, I should not be here now! Fly home! Take back the amulet! I'll tie it round your neck. Take it to my father! May the amulet defend you on the way from vultures and hawks, may it preserve my father from ever feeling such heavy woe as I am feeling here."

With that, she took the amulet and fastened it beneath the dove's wings with the ribbon, in such a way as to show that it had not been unloosed but torn from her neck. Then she opened the window and let the dove go.

The dove cooed, flew into the air, and Michal saw it no more.

And pray what became of the dove? Only this. On the same day it came home to Keszmar and tapped at the window, while the great scholar sat poring over his folios. The learned Professor Frohlich, much amazed, admitted the winged messenger through the cas.e.m.e.nt, and still greater grew his astonishment when he perceived beneath her wings the precious amulet, tied by a ribbon which had evidently been violently torn. Being a very great and learned mathematician, he naturally concluded therefrom that some great evil must have befallen his daughter; whereupon, without thinking of consulting the heavenly bodies as to whether this was a lucky day for traveling, without waiting for a caravan to pa.s.s by that way and pick him up, he took his hat and stick and went off at once and alone to seek his daughter.

He made straight for Great Leta, now going on foot, now sitting on a wagon, now riding on an a.s.s, according as opportunity offered. The young married couple must certainly be at Great Leta, thought he.

But at Great Leta the late pastor's widow received him with great lamentations. She had not set eyes on the young people. It was wrong, very wrong of them not to come, for all the new-born children in the place were being taken to the next parish to be christened; and still more scandalous, during the Leutschau fair last week, Protestant malefactors had to be accompanied to the scaffold by a Papist priest. Such things were no less than flagrant infringements of the Council of Linz, and had lost the parish four Kremnitz ducats.

Thence the learned gentleman proceeded to Zeb, where he inquired after Henry's father, old Catsrider.

No one had ever heard such a name at Zeb. The father and grandfather of Henry had always been called the vihodar, and that was all. Not even in the civic accounts was the name of Catsrider to be found. So they laughed the old man out of countenance with his Catsriders.

They told him that people were making an April fool of him. But for all that he would not budge, but actually made a house to house visitation through the town of Zeb, to find out what had become of his son-in-law and his daughter.

Yet for all his learning and wisdom it never once occurred to him to visit the solitary house which stood without the city walls.

CHAPTER XII.

Consists of a very few words which are, however, of all the more consequence.

When Barbara Pirka visited the young woman next morning, she was greatly astonished to find her quite dressed. Michal had on the beautiful cornflower-blue silk dress of the beheaded Polish countess.

She drove out the housekeeper with her morning broth.

"Bring me broiled flesh and red wine," she cried, imperiously.

So she could speak and eat again at last!

When Barbara Pirka returned with the cold meat, flavored with garlic, and a flask of wine, Michal sat down at the table and took a long draught, and then she ate, and then she drank again.

"Fill up!" she cried to the housekeeper.

After she had eaten and drank her fill, she turned to Barbara Pirka and said:

"What ought a wife to do who hates her husband?"

"Leave that to me, I understand a little about it."

Then Michal asked a second question:

"What ought a wife to do who loves another?"

"Leave that to me also, I understand a good deal about it."

"And what ought a woman to do who no longer believes in Heaven?"

asked Michal for the third time.

"I'll tell you, my little squirrel, for no one knows more about that than I do."

CHAPTER XIII.

Wherein the knavish practices of the evil witch are only insinuated, but not yet fully divulged.

First of all, Barbara Pirka brought on a platter a specific whereby the blue marks caused by blows can be made to vanish in no time. It consists of the piece of cornflower roots plucked on the morning of Corpus Christi Day by a left-handed person with his back to the sun, and the juice of the cardamom plucked on Maundy Thursday, and mixed with the honey of the queen bee. With this balsam she rubbed Michal's bruises, who felt all the better for it. Then Barbara praised Michal greatly, and said that Master Henry would also make a fine show with the scratches he had received from her.

And now she proceeded to answer Michal's first question.

"So you want to know, my little poppet, what a wife should do who does not love her husband? She ought to pretend she loves him very much; for jealousy is like a savage dog--when he's hungry he's wakeful, but when he has his bellyful he goes to sleep. A wife who does not love her husband ought always to take care that he neither hears nor sees anything. And there grows no wonder-working herb in all the mountains around which can make a man half so blind or deaf as when his wife kisses him on the eyes, and whispers in his ear, 'My darling!' A scold is always carrying her husband about on her back, but a good-humored wife is always sitting on her husband's jacket, and he must carry her about wherever she likes. A pretty woman needs no bridle to make a horse of a bearded man like we witches do. She needs only a silken thread, the silken thread of her wheedling voice. The hand with which a pretty woman strokes her husband's cheek is a real gold mine, far more productive than the gold mines of Kremnitz. But a woman who wants an answer to the second question must have money. Yes; and I can give an answer to the third question also. So sure as I'm Barbara Pirka and the leader of the witches, I'll bring your sweetheart to you, my pretty little violet! I'll not so much as ask you his name nor where he dwells, whether it be far or near. All I've got to do is to send my little buck-goat in quest of him, and my little buck-goat will carry him whithersoever you like, if only you'll follow my advice in all things."

The witch's influence over the poor weak girl was already so strong that she followed her advice implicitly. When she met her husband at supper time, she was not ashamed to embrace and caress him, although others were looking on; nay, she even allowed him to take her on his lap and tenderly kiss the blue marks on her face, which blows not given in wrath had left behind them. It is true there was nothing blameworthy in all this fondling. Were they not man and wife? But we know that it was all deceit on the wife's part, for she loathed from the bottom of her heart the man who, under the lying pretense of making her a parson's wife, had torn her away from the darling of her heart, tied her to a common hangman, buried her alive, and made it impossible for her ever to show her face in respectable society again. But she followed the evil counsel of Barbara Pirka so well that she flattered and fondled her husband to the top of his bent, although he no longer wore the splendid scarlet doublet of yesterday, but only a day-laborer's common linen blouse. In his joy he unfastened his leather girdle and shook out the two hundred gold pieces into her lap.

"That is your nuptial gift," said he.

Let no one maintain after this that a hangman can't behave handsomely!

Next morning Michal requested Barbara Pirka to give her an answer to her second question, viz., What a woman must do who loves another than her husband?

"Alas, pet! that is not a very easy question to answer. The loves must first be looked up. Only my little buck-goat can find him, and he cannot set out until he has been shod with golden shoes."

Michal put her hand into her pocket, and took out four gold pieces.

These she handed to the witch, at the same time jingling her pockets to show that there were many more gold pieces where those came from.

The witch laughed.

"What, my little gold c.o.c.kchafer! don't you know then that goats have divided hoofs? My little buck-goat, therefore, requires not four but eight little shoes for his feet."

Michal immediately gave her four more gold pieces.

"And now, my dear little froggy! you will see that the black buck-goat will bring you your sweetheart, only we must wait till the old and the young master are well out of the way, which will certainly happen when the Eperies annual fair begins."

Michal believed everything the witch told her.