In which is shown how vain it is for womankind to
murmur against the course and order of this world.
Pretty Michal was trembling in all her limbs when the housekeeper
undressed and put her to bed.
Barbara Pirka went out of her way to be agreeable and obliging. She
wanted to make Michal a hot salt and bran poultice and prepare her a
posset of centaury, but these and sundry other good offices Michal
absolutely declined, declaring that she had no fear of catching
cold.
After putting the young woman to bed, she sat down beside her, and
rubbed Michal's tiny white feet between her hands. She said it was
good remedy against sleeplessness and anxiety.
"My hand has power," explained Pirka; "I am a seventh child and a
witch to boot."
An ill-bred person would have burst out laughing; but Michal looked
at Pirka with an astonishment which had more of reverence in it than
of fear. She had never seen a witch before.
It pleased Pirka to see how Michal folded her hands together as if
in prayer.
"Yes. Now I'm a witch and can make and mar as I please. But even
those whom I benefit must suffer for it. I was once the wife of a
headsman myself. The business pleased me. The only thing that
surprises me is how a judge can leave to another the torturing and
execution of those he has condemned to death instead of doing it
himself. If I were the Emperor I would make a decree that every
judge should be his own executioner. I was always at my husband's
side when he was at work. I would not have stayed away at any price.
When the felon was a woman I used to clip off her hair with a pair
of shears. What a lot of lovely hair I've cut off in my time! After
my husband's death (a mad dog bit him and he died from the effects
of it), I continued the business with an assistant. My assistant was
a lanky, awkward fellow. Once he put me to shame on the scaffold by
breaking down altogether at his task, so I snatched the sword out of
his hand and finished the job myself. Then they took the business
away from me and kicked me out: they said that it was not meet that
a woman should wield the headsman's sword. So I came hither and
entered the service of this vihodar. He could get no other servant,
and no other master would look at me. But you are shivering, my
dovey! Shall I tell you some pretty tale, my pet?"
At the word "dovey" Michal suddenly recollected her favorite fantail
pigeon, which she had put into her pocket, and she begged Barbara to
take out the poor creature and give it meat and drink. She had
brought some grain with her.
"All right, my darling! But the dove cannot remain in this house.
There are so many owls and hawks here that the timid creature would
die of fright at the very sight of these savage birds of prey; and
besides, don't you know that if your little hen pigeon were to live
here and lay eggs without pairing, and hatch them, the brood would
be goblins instead of chickens?"
Superstition is contagious. Michal already began to believe that her
dove would hatch a brood of gnomes.
She began to be tormented with a desire to know exactly how she
stood, and what was going on about her. Pirka was a queer creature,
certainly; but she was the only woman in the house, and women always
hold together, especially in such a house as this. She was not
afraid of speaking out before Pirka.
Pirka fed the dove and gave it water, and then stuck it into
Michal's pocket again.
"There now!" she said. "She feels all the better for that, I know."
Then she covered up the pretty lady with a warm counterpane and a
bearskin, and while doing so caught sight of the small silk sachet
which was fastened round her neck. Pirka's eyes began to sparkle
savagely. She thought it was an amulet against witchcraft; but
Michal told her that it was only a talisman against the plague,
nothing more. Then Pirka laughed.
"You don't need that here. The plague never penetrates into this
house. At the time of the great Egyptian sickness the headsmen were
the gravediggers. Not one of them died."
"How was that?"
"Why, don't you know? They've made a compact with Death."
Of course no one need take this literally, but it is certain that
men with such blunted nerves as headsmen are not so liable to
contagion as other people.
"It is a memento of my poor mother," said Michal, pressing the
silken sachet to her lips.
"Don't do that," said Pirka, in a warning voice. "As often as one
kisses such mementos the dead person turns round in his grave."
At this Michal could not restrain her tears.
"Come, come, my pretty darling, don't weep! Shall I tell you a
pretty tale? What shall it be about?"
Michal ceased to sob. She begged Pirka to tell her the story of the
lady whose dress she had worn that day.
"Alas, alas, my darling! that is a very sad story; you'll not be
able to sleep if you hear that."
But she told her about it all the same.
"There was once a wondrously beautiful lady, the only daughter of a
noble house. They married her to a Polish lord whom she did not
love. She loved another, a beautiful, brown Hungarian lad, and what
is more she took care never to be very far away from him. One day
the Polish nobleman observed that his wife had on a beautiful dress
of cornflower-blue silk. He asked her: 'Where did you get that
beautiful silk dress from?' She replied: 'My mother sent it to me
from Szeszko as a birthday gift.' The husband did not shirk the
trouble of riding all the way to Szeszko and asking his
mother-in-law whether she had sent her daughter the beautiful blue
dress. Back he came to his wife. 'Wife, your mother has told me that
she sent you that blue dress. You have lied and your mother has lied
also. Confess now from whom you got that beautiful dress.' Then his
wife told him she had bought it at the Lemberg fair with her own
money from an Armenian of Ungvar. The husband did not shirk the
trouble of riding all the way to Ungvar. There he sought out the
Armenian and asked if his wife had purchased from him the
cornflower-blue dress. Then he came back and sent for his wife.
'Wife, wife, you have not spoken the truth, and the Armenian has
lied as well as you, for he said you _did_ buy the cornflower dress
from him.' Then, at last, the woman confessed that she got the
cornflower-blue dress from her lover. It was the death of her. She
was condemned to be beheaded. She was obliged to mount the scaffold
in her beautiful dress, and there take it off and put on
sack-cloth. Never had so handsome a face, so majestic a figure and
such a soft, swan-like neck been seen there before. It was then I
met with the mishap I've already told you of. When my chief
assistant seized the sword and saw such a beautiful creature before
him, he grew green in the face, his eyes became fixed and glazed,
his knees tottered, and at last, as if seized by an epileptic fit,
he fell down and tumbled backward off the scaffold. Then I gave the
sword to my younger assistant. He, however, sank down on his knees
before the kneeling lady, held the handle of his sword in front of
him like a crucifix, and began to chant an _Ave Maria_. The sheriff
was filled with dismay, the Polish nobleman, who stood close by,
began to curse, called all who dwelt in Hungary cowardly milksops,
and spat on the scaffold. Filled with fury thereat, I seized the
sword and with a single blow cut off the woman's head. Then I took
up the head by its long tresses and dashed it in the nobleman's
face. 'You Polack,' I cried, 'take home what is yours!' That was why
they drove me away."
A cold shudder ran through Michal's limbs despite all her warm
wrappings.
"How long Henry remains away," she whispered softly.
"I'll go out, my pretty lambkin, and listen at the door to hear what
he is saying to the old master."
So Pirka went through the dining-room and stopped to listen at the
iron door and find out what was going on in the tower; and Michal,
meanwhile, sang that evening hymn which had reached the ears of the
headsman and his son.
Soon afterward Barbara Pirka returned, and with a sly grin whispered
in Michal's ear:
"Don't fret, darling, the old man has made it all up, and now they
are hugging and kissing each other."
But still Henry did not come back to his wife.
The howling of many dogs resounded through the courtyard below. The
hideous din penetrated the thick vaults and double corridors and
reached the very room where Michal lay.
"They will soon be quiet," said the housekeeper grimly.
Michal, in order to change the subject to something more agreeable,
asked Pirka whether there was any garden to the house.
"You can't keep one," answered Pirka. "Here neither tree nor flower
will flourish. The master's wife found that out long ago, when she
tried to garden. The first summer after she came here, all the
branches of the trees curved inwardly as if they would have crept
under the ground, and the roots were devoured by worms. Nothing
prospers but the black elder-tree, and even that produces red
berries."
Meanwhile, the howling of the dogs grew fainter, as if the number of
them was gradually growing smaller.
"What a long time Henry remains away," sighed the young wife.
"He'll very soon be here now, my pretty sweetheart!"
By this time only two dogs were howling in the courtyard below.
Pirka smiled, and began to arch her eyebrows.
"His reverence will be here almost immediately," said she.
And now only a single dog was howling through the night.
The storm, too, furiously shook the window-casements.
Suddenly the last dog ceased barking.
Pirka blinked, and said:
"The master will soon be here now."
During these odd scenes, Michal consoled herself with the reflection
that the whole thing would be over in a day. Even the last day and
the last night of a condemned felon must come to an end. Let them
once get over this unpleasant day and they would go right away. They
would have a home of their own, a quiet, peaceful parsonage all to
themselves, with a large flower garden and a dove-cot.
Barbara Pirka had prophesied rightly. Soon after the last dog had
quite ceased howling a man's step was heard approaching the door of
the bedroom. Pirka murmured an incantation in the gipsy tongue over
Michal, which might have been a blessing for all that Michal knew to
the contrary. Then the old woman withdrew.
Immediately afterward Henry came in. The first thing he did was to
extinguish the lamp, so that his wife might not see his face. Then
he undressed and lay down beside her, for they both shared the same
couch. Henry threw the bearskin coverlet off the bed; he was bathed
in sweat.
The young wife was shivering, and her teeth chattered. She drew
herself up like a hedgehog, and dared not close her eyes. To prevent
herself from falling asleep she kept on repeating all the quotations
which she knew by heart one after the other.
But Henry was in a raging fever. He kept tossing about on his couch,
and murmured repeatedly, "Jesus, Maria, and St. Joseph!" and
whenever sleep was about to overcome him he would almost throttle
himself, and plunge with his feet till he almost kicked out the
footboard.
The wife trembled, the husband groaned, the tempest outside shook
the window-panes, the weathercocks creaked on the roof, the owls
hooted in the lofts, and so the night wore on.
It was only toward morning that sleep sank down upon the young
wife's weary eyelids. She had already kept vigil for two nights
running, and now her slumber was tormented by frightful dreams till,
when the morning was far advanced, Barbara Pirka came and woke her.
The housekeeper brought the sleeper a steaming wine-posset in a
porcelain bowl.
Michal was not in the least refreshed by her repose. She felt weaker
than ever. A parching thirst tormented her. All her bones ached. She
was glad that Pirka had brought her drink. She cared little whether
the woman was a witch or not, and she felt that it would not much
matter if the hag's potion were to enchant her and change her into
some bestial shape.
She eagerly took the bowl and drained it to the very dregs.
Then she called Barbara Pirka, and said:
"Where is my husband?"
Pirka replied:
"He has gone to town with his father."
"And what is my husband doing in town?" asked pretty Michal once
more.
"He is helping his father to catch dogs."