A true relation of the thoughtlessness of youth, and
the artifices whereby women enthrall their lovers.
"I am afraid!" said Michal, when she found herself in the middle of
the dark forest.
"What's there to be afraid of?" cried Pirka. "The wild beasts, the
bears, and the wolves, have been scared away into other regions by
the shooting match between the county militia and the robbers, so
that they won't come back again in a hurry. The robber bands, too,
have been rooted out. At this moment they are dancing in the air
round the bastions of Eperies. We shall have peace and quiet now for
at least a year to come. Not that the people have been terrified by
the fate of the executed robbers; not a bit of it. On the contrary,
many a man will be thereby stimulated to live and die as bravely as
they have done. But it will be a year at least before the new robber
bands seek (and perhaps find) the treasures hidden by the older
ones. No amount of torture could force from the prisoners the secret
of their hidden treasures. They endured everything rather than give
up their gold and silver. Till there is another outbreak of
highwaymen, therefore, every traveler may go singing through the
woods without the slightest fear. From robbers and wild beasts you
are now quite secure."
"It is God that I am afraid of," said Michal.
The witch pressed the wrists of the young woman together till they
cracked again.
"If ever you dare to repeat that word again," said she, "I'll leave
you in the midst of this dark wood, and then you may either fly or
seek Him whom you fear so much; I'll wash my hands of you."
Then Michal said not another word, but followed the witch, who led
her so surely through the sylvan labyrinth that she actually stopped
at a place in the midst of the thickest thicket, drew a knife from
out of the trunk of a tree, and showed it to Michal.
"Look! This knife I stuck into that tree in the broad daylight, as I
passed by this way, and now I have found it again in darkest night."
Not an hour had passed, and the moon still stood in the sky, when
they arrived at the kopanitscha of Görgö.
"Here we stop," cried Pirka. "This is the house where the doves bill
one another on the gables."
Just then, however, all the doves were asleep; but in the courtyard
a woman was wandering about, who raised her hands toward the moon,
and made all sorts of frantic gestures.
Pirka greeted her with strangely sounding words, not one of which
Michal understood, and the kopanitschar's wife answered in the same
fashion.
"Have you offered up a witch's prayer, and if so, for what have you
prayed?"
"I have prayed that the devil may take the old vihodar."
"He has got him already. Janko bit him in the neck, and immediately
he was a dead man."
"Beelzebub be praised!" cried the kopanitschar's wife, and she
frisked about for joy.
"Cook us some supper, sisterkin," said Pirka to Annie.
"What sort of a guest have you brought me?" asked the latter.
"You know well enough without being told."
Then Annie recognized Michal, and laughed with all her might.
Witches always rejoice when they see an innocent soul rushing to
perdition.
With that the pair of them led her into the kitchen, and made a
great fire, on which they put sundry pots. But Pirka filled a
smaller pan with water, and after performing all sorts of mystic
hocus-pocus over it, put it also on the fire, first of all throwing
into it a scrap of paper, on which the word Valentine was written.
"What does that pot do on the fire?" asked Annie.
"As soon as all the water in it has boiled away, so that nothing
remains in it but the scrap of paper, my buck-goat will bring this
pretty little lady her stately lover. Make ready the supper, I say,
there will be five of us."
"I don't like odd numbers," said Annie; but she forthwith fell to
killing and plucking fowls, and baking little cakes.
Michal sat at the window and shivered.
During the cooking, Annie sang obscene flower songs, and Pirka kept
on drawing her pan away from the fire and putting it on again.
Annie asked her why she did that.
"When the water boils fiercely, my buck with the stately lover is
running so fast that the poor young man can hardly draw his breath;
but when I remove the pan from the fire, he goes along more quietly,
and the poor fellow can take breath again."
In ordinary circumstances Michal would have laughed aloud at such
superstition. But to-day she had gone through so many dreadful
things, and she was so staggered by the actual fulfillment of two of
the events predicted by Pirka's cards, that she dared not deny the
possibility of a third. Half of the witch's prophecy had already
come to pass. She had escaped from her husband's house, and was now
awaiting her lover in a strange place. Everything was possible after
that.
"He is coming now. He is quite near!" cried Pirka, looking into the
pan. "I already hear the galloping of my buck-goat, I already hear
his four feet on the roofs of the houses. Now he is springing over
the Krivan, now he is running along the Polish Saddle.[3] Hi! Hi!
How he is galloping! Quick, my little buck, quick! quick!"
[Footnote 3: Two of the Karpathian Alps.]
Michal's common sense was quite dazed by all these insane
proceedings. She was no longer mistress of herself.
"And now it's time to dress," continued Pirka, and with that she
took off Michal's peasant garb, and arrayed her in a rosy colored
robe. She laced tightly her bodice to show off her waist, and combed
out and plaited her long tresses to make them crisp and wavy. Her
sweetheart was coming, so she must look nice to please him. The
young lady was quite bewildered. She let them do what they liked
with her.
Outside the moon had gone down. It had grown quite dark. A silent,
starless night, dank with heavy falling dew.
"Now he'll be here almost directly," cried the witch, as the water
bubbled away at the bottom of the pan.
And now the blare of a farogato began to resound through the silent
night. Nearer and nearer came the music. Michal's heart beat
quickly. She recognized her favorite song. She scarcely knew whether
she was awake or dreaming, whether she was in the world or out of
it. There was a buzzing in her ears. The air around her was full of
dancing specters. Her body seemed too narrow for her soul. Nearer
and nearer came the song. At the bottom of the pan, the last drop
of water had long since evaporated.
"My buck-goat has arrived," cried the witch, in triumph.
At that moment, Valentine Kalondai entered and advanced toward
Michal.
* * * * *
It was no longer joy, it was frenzy which took possession of the
young woman. Up she sprang with a shriek, and then threw herself on
her beloved's breast, wound her arms round his neck, pressed her
lips to his mouth as if she would have inhaled his very soul, and
wetted his cheeks with her tears.
How long did they hold each other thus embraced? An eternity
perhaps, like that which Mirza Shah experienced when, at the Persian
Magian's command, he crept under a tub, and dreamed away a whole
lifetime in a single moment. At least, Michal fancied that it must
have been a very long time, for on coming to herself again she said,
with a sigh: "What a pity that the morning is breaking! Look! there
is the dawn already?"
A great light had suddenly sprung up in the sky.
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Barbara Pirka, "that certainly would be a
crazy sun which rose in the west! What you see there is the morning
sheen of hell. The house of the headsman is burning. A pretty dawn
that certainly!"
The fire threw a frightful blood-red glare over mountain and forest,
and gilded the white rocks in the distance as if they too were
flaming. The stars twinkled faintly through the ruddy glow.
"Now you may sleep in peace, my children," said Barbara Pirka. "By
the time the young vihodar returns, he will find only the ruins of
his house, and will fancy that his wife has been burnt likewise. He
will seek her no more on this earth."
"And even if he should seek her," cried Valentine defiantly, "I
would not give her up to him though heaven and earth commanded it. I
would rather get together a band of robbers and wage war against all
humanity, than allow my beloved to be ever torn from me again.
Whoever would take my Michal away from me must tear her from my arms
on the very scaffold."
And he smote the butt-end of his musket so violently on the ground,
that both the witches leaped up to the very ceiling for joy.
But Michal fell upon Valentine's neck and stammered:
"With thee by my side, I'll go forth into the wild forest and face
cold and tempest. With thee I'll brave death, yea, damnation itself.
I crave no other death than the death by which thou diest. I desire
no other eternity, be it bliss or woe, than the eternity which
unites our soul in one, my angel, my king, my sun!"
And Simplex thrust his trumpet through the window and sounded a
wedding march, which awoke the echoes in the neighboring hills.