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 cockchafer! 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.
What else could she have done? All her former faith had been
destroyed. She believed in nothing more. The wisdom of her father,
the amulet of her mother, had become utterly worthless in her eyes.
She had been deceived, humbled, imprisoned, mocked, tormented, she
who had never hurt a living thing, she who had always been so good!
"Well," thought she, "now I'll be wicked, perhaps that will bear
better fruit."
But Barbara Pirka immediately gave Simplex four of the eight gold
pieces, the rest she kept for herself, and from that day forth
Michal no longer heard the songs of the field-trumpet sounding in
the courtyard.