Wherein is shown what terrible perils befall women
who are not resigned to their fate, and do not obey
their lords and masters.
Pretty Michal did not immediately expire on receiving this answer.
For a moment, indeed, she really believed her heart would have
ceased to beat there and then. Everything around her seemed to be
turning pitch-black, and the horror which froze her breast made
itself felt even to the tips of her fingers. Then she held her
breath and fancied that her last hour had come.
But she very soon found that death is not to be had for the mere
asking.
And surely the old witch must have put something in her drink, some
magic charm capable of producing a complete moral transformation;
for how else account for the evil thoughts which now suddenly
occurred to her as she sat there on the edge of the bed, thoughts
which, so far from keeping to herself, she uttered quite loud? Was
she speaking to the old hag at her side or to some invisible being?
Heaven only knows, but there she sat gazing steadily before her,
with her fingers on her lips and her elbows on her knees.
"What then, after all, is the use of all the wisdom of the learned,
of all the precepts of the saints? Why cast horoscopes, why consult
the stars, if it is all to end like this? And they had said: 'How
can you, a clergyman's daughter, give your hand to a man who works
in blood, for he'll be bound to follow his father's trade? Will you
allow your whole life to be a ceaseless bloodshedding? What! every
day to rise and shed blood, and every night to lie down with blood!
Every day to trace blood on the hands of him who embraces you! To be
bound for life to a man whose very calling it is to lay violent
hands on God's innocent creatures!' Alas! alas! Then it was only the
blood of sheep and oxen that was in question. And now! What avails
it, then, all the wisdom of the wise, when such things are possible?
What if the little automatic dog had wagged his tail and stuck out
his tongue by way of warning? And to think that a living wise man
should have had no idea of the impending ruin of a human soul, and
that soul his very daughter! What, then, is the use of amulets and
talismanic necklaces? What is the good of the angelic choirs in
heaven when they cannot protect the faithful from such calamities?"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Barbara Pirka, "there are very many more men
in this world, my jewel, than there are angels in heaven. It is not
everyone that has a guardian angel to look after him, but there
isn't a man in this world who hasn't seven devils all to himself. I,
too, was carried off from my father's house by my husband. He told
me he was a tanner, and I, silly fool! did not inquire what sort of
hides he tanned. But I made him pay one hundred-fold for that one
deceit, I warrant you."
Michal stared blankly at her. She did not understand a word of what
Pirka was talking about.
Pirka shrugged her shoulders.
"My ruby! won't we put on our clothes?"
"No!" cried Michal, defiantly, and throwing herself back in the bed.
"Where are the clothes in which I came hither?"
"They are still very wet and hanging up to dry. They are tattered
and torn, too, and want a lot of mending."
"I'll wait here till I get them."
So she stayed in bed. She would have nothing to do with the terrible
finery which had belonged to the unhappy Polish lady.
And all day long nobody troubled her. Everyone in the house had
something to do in town.
Barbara Pirka brought her her dinner; but the hag had no sooner
taken it in than she had to take it out again. Michal would not
touch a morsel.
Late in the afternoon the men came home. Michal again heard a
horrible howling and yelping, brawling voices and heavy footsteps.
It was only when they passed her door that they trod softly. Someone
standing outside whispered to them:
"Pst! be quiet! The lady keeps her bed!"
"If she keeps her bed, she must be ill!" so thought they all.
When it was dark, Barbara Pirka came down again and lit the lamp in
Michal's room.
How happy the evening hours had been to Michal at home, when she
could go to her book-shelves and take down her learned folios. Then
she had never felt alone.
But here there were not even books!
* * * * *
The night was far advanced. Every living thing had long ago gone to
sleep. Cautious footsteps approached the chamber where Michal lay.
The door opened and Henry entered.
He wore a gold-embroidered doublet buckled round with a stately
girdle; his sleeves were trimmed with gold lace right up to the
elbows. His large, tight-fitting jack-boots were of yellow buckskin,
and they too were richly embroidered with lace. No bride could have
wished for a more handsomely equipped bridegroom. But he had no
sooner entered the room than Michal sprang from her bed, and
wrapping herself in the bearskin, shrieked in a voice hoarse with
rage:
"How dare you come in hither? This is the bedroom of my husband, the
pastor of Great Leta! None else has any business here at all!"
The witch's potion must certainly have changed Michal's very nature,
for language such as this was the last thing to be expected from so
meek and gentle a creature in the hour of her terrible dereliction.
And some mighty spell really was at work, for that big, strong man,
who could have brought the weak creature before him to her knees in
the twinkling of an eye, was so frightened by Michal's repellent
gesture, so timidly apprehensive of her furiously flashing eyes,
that he could not utter a word, but slunk out of the chamber like a
whipped cur.
Some person who had been eavesdropping outside all the time giggled
aloud, and then was heard the voice of a man blaspheming the name of
God, and gnashing his teeth with rage.
Surely that was not the parson of Great Leta?
Certainly not. But what has become of him? Well, after the work of
yesterday night and to-day, the doors of every church are shut
against Henry Catsrider, and the steps leading to every pulpit are
broken down as far as he is concerned.
The old vihodar had taken very good care that his son should never
be a clergyman again.
And Michal remained alone with her phantoms.
She thought upon the vanished days of her maidenhood; of the
innocent joys amidst which her days had glided so sweetly away; of
the studies, which had always been a source of delight to her.
Whither had vanished all those joys and all those studies? What
availed her now the books of all those learned men? What to her now
was moral philosophy, horticulture, or domestic economy? Here there
was no morality, no garden, no home! Her life at home had been a
monastic life, but it was a veritable heaven compared with this
hell.
But when she fell a-thinking how happy she might have been if she
had given her hand to him whom her heart had chosen--who was not
perhaps very learned, but certainly upright, honest, good-hearted,
and over head and ears in love--then indeed evil thoughts began to
arise within her.
When the moon shone through the iron bars of her window she could
not help thinking what a nice time the witches must have of it; they
had only to bestride their broomsticks and scud through the air,
even narrow iron bars could not stop them.
What if her forsaken sweetheart were thinking of her now? Would he
ever learn into what depths of misery the mistress of his heart had
fallen?
While she was thinking of these things, and drying her streaming
eyes, she suddenly heard in the court below the tune of one of her
favorite songs, which ran thus:
The cloud wherein the crow doth stay,
The dark black cloud will pass away!
Someone was playing this air on a Hungarian field-trumpet.
This instrument is called the farogato, and very few know how to
play it. It is certainly a difficult instrument. Let anyone but a
connoisseur attempt to blow it, and he will bring forth a sound not
at all unlike the howl of a dog on whose tail someone has trodden.
But he who really knows the secret of the field-trumpet can play
thereon every imaginable air, in tones which will go to one's very
heart. You'll find yourself weeping without exactly knowing why. The
good old songs, as they come forth from the instrument, recall to
you the lullaby which your mother used to sing at your cradle, and
the hymn which was sung at your father's burial. It does you good
and makes you sad at the same time. But when a real connoisseur
takes up the farogato and blows into it with all his might, then
indeed he brings forth notes which excite the martial sentiments of
every hearer, notes which can be heard for two miles round. It
sounds just as if a host were marching forth to battle and to
victory.
It was this instrument which, thirty years later, inspired the rebel
troops of Rakóczy in the campaigns. After the insurrection was over,
therefore, the peace-abiding government collected together all the
farogatos in the land and destroyed them, just as if they had been
so many double-mortars. Only a single specimen still remains, which
is exhibited as a great curiosity in the Royal Museum at Buda-Pest,
and only a single man in the whole land knows how to play it.
We have said this much about the farogato in order to give some idea
of the great joy which arose in Michal's heart, when she suddenly
heard it playing her favorite song.
Her father had often spoken to her about an out-at-elbow vagrant
student, whom the scholars derisively nicknamed Simplex, and who had
wrought much mischief there with his music by enticing the sons of
the Muses away from their studies thereby. Kalondai, in particular,
had to thank this fellow for the corruption of his morals, in fact
they were hand and glove. Besides that, Simplex was a low fellow,
who had not been ashamed to serve a twelve months' apprenticeship
with the civic trumpeter of Zeb, and since then had spent all his
time in gadding about the country as an itinerant musician, earning
a penny here and a penny there at wedding feasts and such like
riotous entertainments. All this the learned professor had told his
daughter in high dudgeon; but what a comfort it was to her that she
knew it now. From the fact that she heard all her favorite songs
played one after the other in the courtyard below, she drew the
following conclusion: If Simplex has come hither, it is only because
Kalondai sent him. If he is staying here, it is certainly only
because he wants to find out something about me. When he discovers
what my position is, he will return to his bosom friend and tell him
everything.
And the thought consoled her.
For hours and hours she listened in the beautiful moonlight to the
well-known melancholy strains, which her serving-maids used to sing
when they heard the field-trumpet's blare outside. She, too, had now
and again hummed "The Hunter's Song," or "The Polish Lay of the
Three Hundred Widows," with its ghostly finale supposed to represent
the Dance of Death.
Simplex played these airs very prettily. Michal could have listened
to him all night.
* * * * *
Early in the morning Pirka appeared, and brought her the wine posset
spiced with cloves, cinnamon, and muscat-nut.
While she was sipping it, Michal angrily asked: "Who is that
tiresome man who keeps on blowing his trumpet all night in the
courtyard below?"
She was already learning to be sly. It is ever so with women. Treat
them with tenderness and affection, and they are as gentle as doves
and speak straight out what they think. But just bully, offend, or
persecute them, and they become as crafty as serpents. No one
teaches them deceit, and yet they are masters in it. Then they think
before they speak, and their tongues say one thing and their hearts
another.
So that was why Michal complained so angrily about that tiresome
man. She knew by instinct that the best way to keep him in the house
was to complain of him.
"Oh, my darling!" said Barbara Pirka, "don't say that! He is my
trumpeter, quite a superior young man, I assure you."
"And pray when will he take himself off and let people sleep o'
nights?" she asked with dissembled bitterness.
"He is not so easily got rid of, darling! If you were to chuck him
out of doors with a pitchfork he would come in again through the
window. He enjoys himself amazingly with the lads! Would you believe
it, they got up a fine dance last night! There was no lack of
partners either, for each of the lads brought in a large watch-dog,
made it stand on its hind-legs, and danced with it that way. If you
had been there you'd have split your sides for laughing. Last of
all, everyone made his partner kiss the musician. Ha! ha! ha!"
"The beast!" cried Michal, wiping her mouth in disgust. "And why
then does he not run away from a place where they treat him so
vilely?"
"I'll tell you, my dear little squirrel! 'tis because he is
desperately in love with me."
Then Michal thought how great must be the friendship of these two
men, when one of them is willing to live as a guest in the
headsman's house, make sport for the headsman's henchmen, endure
their brutal jests, nay, even make love to this domestic witch,
simply to bring his friend tidings of the woman who has been the
cause of all his misery!
All that day Barbara Pirka did not bring Michal the clothes in which
she had come, nor did Michal again put on the fine dress which had
been given to her. She preferred to feign illness and lie in bed.
But Henry dared not show his face to her all that day.
Neither on that nor yet on the following day did he appear before
her. He was waiting till Michal got up.
She, however, would take nothing but broth, so that she might say
she was ill and not be obliged to get up.
And night after night she listened at the window to the farogato,
and it sometimes seemed to her as if someone was urging the musician
to play with all his might.
* * * * *
Meanwhile Henry steadily plied his trade. The better to inure him to
it, he was never allowed to be sober for a moment. They gave him
heavy beer to drink which muddled his head. They gave him garlic to
eat, and the very consciousness that he has eaten garlic is
sufficient to make a man regard himself as the enemy of all
refinement. The coarse jests which he heard from his father's
henchmen, familiarity with dirt and filth, the drunken orgies into
which he was plunged, so brutalized him that at last he absolutely
did not know how to approach such a tenderly nurtured creature as
Michal in a propitiatory manner. So he learnt to sing filthy songs
instead, and vied with the headsman's lads themselves in cursing and
swearing.
If the reverend professor could have seen his son-in-law now he
would have fancied that this was an homunculus whom some alchemist
had inflated with another and an inferior soul.
That his wife had driven him out of her bedchamber was not regarded
as anything extraordinary. In these days the women of Zeb were so
shamefaced and coy that it was considered by no means proper for
young married people to begin billing and cooing while the honeymoon
was yet young. Nay, it was even requisite that the husband when he
stole the first kiss from his bride should bear away the marks of
her ten nails in his face, just as if he had been engaged in taming
a wild panther; while a woman who at the beginning of the honeymoon
was able to pitch her husband twice out of the bridal-chamber could
reckon upon reaping a whole harvest of praise.
It was consequently nothing unusual if a modest young spouse, with a
good opinion of herself, abstained from eating during the first few
days of her honeymoon, or even made as though she had been struck
dumb. It showed that she had been piously brought up, that was all.
It was only when this self-imposed abstinence lasted long enough to
endanger the lady's life that third parties stepped in and put a
stop to it.
So Michal had her own way entirely, neither getting up, nor
dressing, nor speaking, nor taking any nourishment to speak of.
But on Friday, when Pirka came in to see her, Michal sneezed
violently. Now when anybody sneezes on Friday it signifies that his
enemies will triumph over him. So, at least, Pirka interpreted it.
Then she observed that the iron window shutters had been left open
all night, and she scolded Michal for it.
"It is not good," she said, "to sleep in moonlight, for it draws all
the strength out of one's heart." Then she whispered to Michal that
to-day the young master was going to accomplish his masterpiece.
What that masterpiece was, Michal had little difficulty in guessing.
On such occasions, to each of the headsman's assistants is given a
flask of brandy wherewith to strengthen his heart. The master
himself partakes of brandy mingled with hartshorn and sunflower dew,
which (we have it on the authority of Arnoldus de Villanova) is such
an efficacious cordial that so long as a man drinks thereof he will
probably never die.
It chanced, moreover, that on this very day Henry was bitten by a
strange dog, and as there was no knowing whether the beast might not
be mad they made young Catsrider swallow a large pill of very
pungent spices as an antidote; and no doubt this too had an
inflammatory effect upon his blood.
Add to this that the old master on this particular evening gave a
great feast to all his apprentices, at which they first drank heavy
old beer and then strong red wine. The apprentices on this occasion
mocked Henry unmercifully, and called him a milksop, fit only to be
stuck up in a corner and beaten with a spindle by his wife. The wine
mounted to his head, and the blood and the gibes did the rest. The
feast was no sooner over than Henry went straight to the door of
Michal's chamber, set his shoulders against it, and tore it off its
hinges.
* * * * *
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 Keszmár and tapped at the window, while the great scholar
sat poring over his folios. The learned Professor Fröhlich, much
amazed, admitted the winged messenger through the casement, 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 pass 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 ass, 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.