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 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.