Chapter XXXII

Whereby we learn that it is not good to come to close quarters with Satan, for if we catch him by the horns he butts us, if we clutch him by the throat he bites us, and if we hold him by the neck he kicks us.

"Perhaps it was not she after all?"

"It was. She looked at me, spoke to me, mocked me, and threatened me. Oh! all my limbs are still trembling!"

"Don't tremble, darling! Lay your hand on my breast and warm it. Have I not the power to defend you?"

"No! Though you had the power to defend me against all the world, you would be powerless against this woman, and you know it."

"Don't be afraid of her! She was in rags, you say? I'll pay her off, and she'll hold her tongue and go her way. Even if it will cost me my whole fortune, I'll buy her off and give you peace. Don't be afraid of her! She will certainly come again to see what she can get. Here is the key of my strong-box. Give her money. Manage so that mother knows nothing about it. As soon as you have satisfied her, I'll have all the foreign itinerant beggars, quacks, and fortune-tellers drummed out of the town within twenty-four hours, and then she also will vanish."

Valentine's soothing words had very little effect upon pretty Michal. All night long she was plagued by horrible dreams, and frequently sprang out of bed as if Death himself was after her.

Next day, while Valentine was at the townhall, Michal listened anxiously whenever a door creaked or a dog barked, and often peeped into the street through the closed window; but no one disturbed her all that day. The terrific form did not appear.

The third day passed, and the fourth, and yet the dreaded specter did not appear. Michal began to believe that the terrible beggar-woman had after all only been a phantom, the mere creature of her own imagination.

And so Friday arrived, when the beggars of the town visit every house in turn, and every door must be opened to them.

Pretty Michal used personally to distribute the Friday's alms, a piece of bread and a penny, at the kitchen door.

At last the shape swathed in the red cloth, the shape so long expected in fear and trembling, came to the half-open door, and began the usual beggar's whine, "Praised be the--"

Michal did not let her finish the blasphemous salutation, but seized her by the hand and drew her rapidly into a side chamber. Here the beggar-woman took the cloth from her head, and laughed in Michal's face.

"Well! Here I am again! Eh? Have you thought about me much? Have you often mentioned me to your husband? Have you ever said: 'I wonder where poor Barbara is? If only we could see her once more?' Do you still recognize me? I haven't grown much younger since then, have I?"

"Barbara!" said Michal, rallying all her courage, "we must not converse very long together or else my mother will hear it."

"Ah, ha! So you have another mother besides me?"

"I know what you want--money. I'll give you all I can, and then, in God's name, go!"

"I don't want money--there now! I have enough of that and to spare. Look!" and with that she showed her a netted purse in which were at least two hundred ducats. "I want something else. I won't go from hence in anyone's holy name, for I've not come hither to be sent away, but to talk to you. Yes, to talk to you, in all secrecy, yet without fear. I already know all the habits of this household. At two o'clock in the afternoon your husband goes to the townhall to attend to his business. At the selfsame hour, the old lady has her afternoon nap. She has need of it, poor thing. In the afternoon the shop is closed, and not opened again till six in the evening; for no one sends for meat in the afternoon, and meanwhile the apprentices are busy at the drawbridge. But behind the gate is a side door, through which the meat is carried up into the shop, to be cured and salted; through that door I can creep in unobserved. Even the dogs don't bark at me. Be there in the afternoon when it strikes two! Then I'll tell you something."

With that she quickly whipped the cloth round her head again, and whisked out of the room, shuffling and scraping all the way down the long corridor as beggar-women do.

Michal remained behind, tormented by agonizing doubts. What did this woman, who had so much power over her, mean to do with her? If she will not let her silence be bought with gold, what price will she demand for it?

She said nothing to anyone, not even to her husband, about the rendezvous; but it seemed an age to her before Valentine went off to the townhall, and her mother-in-law began dozing in her armchair. At the stroke of two, she was already in the shop below, the trellis-door of which, leading to the street, was closed, while the side door near the gateway stood ajar.

Red Barbara appeared punctually. She looked cautiously round for fear of an ambush, and then slowly closed the door behind her that it might not creak. Then she stroked pretty Michal's face with her rough red hand, and said with cunning flattery:

"Eh! my little sweetheart, how lovely you have grown since last I saw you!"

Her touch, her words, made Michal shudder.

"I don't wonder at all at the enamoured Zurdoki going quite off his head about you."

"Zurdoki?"

"Yes, my dear little cockchafer! You may be quite sure that I have not come all the way to your dismal town of Kassa for my own amusement, but because I have been sent thither. The fine stout gentleman, the gracious, rich, and kind old gentleman, said to me: 'Go, dear gossip Barbara, go to the town of Kassa, seek there my wondrous little flower, the pretty wife of Valentine Kalondai, your own dear daughter, whom you got married to her husband at Bártfa, and take her this costly girdle. She must wear it for my sake, and it will make her more beautiful than ever!'"

The girdle was inlaid with turquoises and Orient pearls, a gift meet for a princess.

Michal dashed it angrily to the ground.

"Shameless wretch!"

"Whom do you call shameless? Me?"

"No, the sender."

"Oh, my treasure! I don't say that's all. He will give you very much more than that. He will load you with precious things, so that your beauty will shine forth still more resplendently."

"I won't have his presents!"

"Who dares to talk of presents here? It is not presents that a pretty woman receives. Oh, no! When any one brings a costly offering to a saint, he does it to open the way to heaven in the next world; and when anyone sends costly offerings to a pretty woman, _he_ does it to obtain heaven here below. That is no present, but a well-earned reward."

"Reward! For what?"

"For what? How simple we are! Why, for admitting someone into your heaven, of course."

"What! The horrible old devil really believes that of me?"

"Come, come! A man is never horrible, and the devil is never old. If you think him ugly I'll give you a magic potion, and with that in your body you'll think him a prince."

"Go to hell with him! ugly or handsome. I'll none of him! I have a husband whom I love."

"You have two husbands, and one of them you do not love. Your first and lawful husband, whom you have forsaken for the more comely one, lives the life of a lonely, dismal bachelor at Zeb. You are on a crooked path. Do you fancy you can keep straight? No! you must go on as you have begun. Do you think that I only took you away from the house of the headsman of Zeb, in order that one stout butcher's wife the more might in course of time sit in the front pew of the Cathedral of Kassa?"

"You frightful woman! What do you mean to do with me?"

"What do I mean to do with you? Why, you little fool! I want to give you the whole world. I want you to find out what sort of fruit grew on the tree of which our mother Eve plucked one. Why, when she was about it, did she not pick ten or twenty? If I had wished you to join the ranks of the saints as a martyr, I should have left you in the house of the headsman of Zeb, shouldn't I? Do you suppose that I do not know how to value your beautiful white velvety skin, your large sparkling eyes, your round cheeks, your inviting lips, your fine figure? All the noble opals in the mines of Dubink are not half as numerous as the precious stones which will be laid at your feet whenever you like. Your fingers will turn whatever they touch to gold. If you only do what I tell you, you'll be richer than King Darius. And it won't cost you the least trouble. It will seem as if you only dreamt it all. Who can call you to account for what you dream? Do you go to confession merely for dreaming that you are another man's wife. Fear nothing! If only you will put yourself in my hands, you will tread on no one's corns. But if you try to get away from me, it will only be so much labor lost. I have only to send a letter, a word, to Henry Catsrider, and you and your Valentine are lost. We shall see pretty Michal publicly scourged with rods and branded with red-hot irons in the market-place, and they will strike off the head of the sheriff of Kassa; for your lawfully wedded husband still lives, and you were not separated from him when you married the second."

Michal shuddered. She felt herself in the grip of a vise. She could only tear herself away by force. Feminine cunning suggested an idea, and rage and pride matured it into a regular plan. She would pretend to lend an ear to the evil counsels of her seducer. She would ostensibly consent to the disgraceful offer, lure Zurdoki to her, and when quite sure of him, would tell her husband everything.

A man like Valentine would most certainly kill both the seducer and his go-between, and such a homicide is justified by the laws and customs of every nation.

Then she meditated killing by the hand of her husband the one being in the world who was in possession of her secret. She had reason enough for hating with a deadly hatred the witch who came to her with such a dastardly proposal, and whose devilish intention it was to hand her innocent soul over to perdition; but at the bottom of this murderous idea was the constant thought that, when once Barbara was out of the way, her secret would be secure. So she whispered gently to Barbara:

"I'm only afraid someone will find me out."

Barbara's eyes flashed and sparkled like those of a wolf pouncing on his prey. She fancied the little bird was caught already.

"Leave it all to me," she replied, also in a whisper, "no true woman ever lets herself be caught. One who really knows what's what can even manage to be in two places at the same time. You know how to treat your husband so that he sees least when he's most on the alert. Only rely upon me. Has anyone ever suspected our former secret? Very well, then! It will be the same with this one also. No headsman can tear from me with red-hot pincers what I know about you, and no stately youth can wheedle it out of me with fond caresses; but a single shifty look from you may make me blab."

And Michal so far overcame her heartfelt horror of the evil witch as to press her hand and promise that they two would hold together as heretofore. Then she told her to be at the same place on the morrow, at the same time.

"And when the proper time comes," she added, confidentially, "you must once more practice enchantments with the pan of water on the fire, and the buck-goat will bring me the enamored swain."

Michal was well aware that it was no buck-goat, but his own legs, that had brought Valentine to her on that occasion; but she wanted to flatter the witch, who was much gratified by the allusion. She winked roguishly, patted Michal's cheeks once more, and after promising to come on the morrow, whisked out of the door as stealthily as she had come.

But Michal went up into her own room, threw herself on the bed, and wept bitterly. And when, a little time afterward, Dame Sarah asked her how it was that her eyes were so red, she pretended she had been working too long at a piece of fine white embroidery. Dame Sarah thereupon locked up every piece of white embroidery in her wardrobe, so that Michal might not ruin her eyes. When, however, her husband came home and asked whether Barbara had been there yet, she pretended that the woman had not appeared that day also.

Next day the witch came again after it had struck two o'clock, locked herself up with Michal in the butcher's shop, and had a whole hour's conversation with her.

And when Red Barbara had gone away, pretty Michal again went up into her bedroom, and wept till her mother-in-law awoke from her afternoon nap. And when Dame Sarah again asked her why her eyes were so red, she pretended that the scent of the sweet basil plant in her room was too strong, and had given her a headache.

Dame Sarah immediately had all the flowers which stood in glazed jars on Michal's window-sill removed elsewhere.

And this evening also pretty Michal deceived her husband by assuring him that Red Barbara had never been there.

The following day was Sunday. Pretty Michal declared she did not feel well and could not go to church. This time Dame Sarah and Valentine went to the house of God without her. During their absence Red Barbara again visited Michal, and the young woman dismissed the witch with the assurance that she was quite ready to receive the gracious gentleman if he would only come, whereupon Red Barbara promised to hasten on her hobby-horse (a broomstick, no doubt!) to Saros, and Michal might expect her return any day.

When Michal heard that the witch was about to depart, she felt much relieved. That day she told her husband that Red Barbara had been there, and had departed satisfied. The same afternoon Valentine had it publicly proclaimed, that all foreign vagrants must quit the town by the following morning, or in default thereof be whipped with rods.

And now nothing was heard of the evil witch for some time to come.

But the roses did not come back to pretty Michal's cheeks, nor did the wrinkles vanish from Valentine's brow. Dame Sarah observed them both with anxious curiosity. Something dreadful was going on, of that she felt quite certain, especially as pretty Michal had now altogether left off going to church.

This much indeed Dame Sarah knew for certain. On the day of the election of the sheriff, just before her daughter-in-law had swooned away, a strange beggar-woman with a red cloth round her head had been seen to approach her, and now sundry friends and acquaintances told her that at the very time when she was wont to enjoy her afternoon nap, this same beggar-woman had been seen to step into the shop, and not come out again for some considerable time.

"My daughter-in-law is bewitched," said she to herself, "and no other than that evil witch has done it."

And pretty Michal pined and fell off from day to day, and no one knew what was the matter with her.

* * * * *

Meanwhile political events were ripening toward a catastrophe. Neither the remonstrances of his own subjects nor the prohibition of the Sultan could deter George Rakoczy. He collected a host and, uniting with the Cossacks and the Wallacks, went out against Poland. To win over the Emperor Ferdinand, however, he transferred to him the whole of that part of the land which lay along the banks of the Theiss; though, to be sure, this liberality was not of the slightest use to him. The Kaiser took, indeed, the counties offered to him, but declared at the same time that he did not approve of Rakoczy's attack on Poland, and, if necessary, would drive him out from thence by force of arms.

In consequence of these events, the town of Kassa had to send a deputation to Pressburg to negotiate with the delegates of the Emperor and the Palatine as to the maintenance of the privileges of the town and the confirmation of its religious liberties, and the sheriff, Valentine Kalondai, was chosen the spokesman of this deputation.

This mission took him away from home for some time, and there was very much weeping and sobbing on pretty Michal's part when he departed. Valentine would have liked to have taken her with him to Pressburg, but it was scarcely prudent to venture upon so long a journey at winter-time with such an invalid. On his departure, however, he was very urgent with his mother to guard his beloved Michal as the very apple of her eye; but, indeed, all such exhortations were quite superfluous, for good Dame Sarah dearly loved her daughter-in-law, and was constantly racking her brains as to what had made her so very sad all at once. Immediately after Valentine's departure there was a great fall of snow, and Dame Sarah persuaded her daughter-in-law to take a sledge drive into the town to see the carnival revels. The fresh air might do her good, and the bracing cold would perhaps bring back the roses to her cheeks.

Michal herself was very fond of sledging. She therefore let them bring her her furred pelisse, and harness the horses to the jingling sledge. Behind her on the box-seat sat the faithful Ali, loudly cracking his long whip.

Just as they were turning round the corner of the church into the public square, a swarm of frisky masqueraders began to pelt the sledge with snow. One of the snowballs fell right into Michal's lap, and as she shook it off her pelisse, there fell at her feet from the crumbling snow, a little crumpled piece of paper.

She picked it up and saw that something was written on it.

"At two o'clock this afternoon I shall be there!"

So she has come back. She has dared to creep back into the town, despite the prohibition. She has been watching for the time when the husband would not be at home!

When pretty Michal got home again her face was paler than ever. All her limbs were as cold as ice. Perhaps she would even have been taken ill had not Dame Sarah, there and then, insisted upon her swallowing a hot wine-and-nutmeg posset. She rallied all her strength, however, so as to be able to go and meet the evil witch when she came. She was in her power, she must obey her in all things, she must go wherever she bade her.

Even her indignation was paralyzed by the circumstance that Valentine was now far away from her. The trap had been laid, the sword sharpened; but who was to kill the evil being that had fallen into the snare?

As soon as dinner was over and Dame Sarah asleep, she slipped unobserved down into the usual trysting-place. The shop had a double door in the gateway. When Michal had opened the outer door, she thought to herself how strange it would be if the witch were already standing between the two doors.

And there, indeed, the witch really was, so that Michal did not even scream out when she saw her.

Witches can get into any room through a keyhole--especially if they have the assistance of a skeleton key.

"Alas, alas! my little poppet, how pale you have grown," whimpered Barbara, when she saw Michal. "You must get back your rosy color somehow, or else there's an end to all your glory. In this moldy city even you are catching the Kassa color, and it is, therefore, high time that you left it."

"But how dare you come into the town again?" said Michal, "when you know very well how strictly it is forbidden for all such--such----"

"Don't pick your words, sweetheart! Call a spade a spade! You mean to say, such a vagabond brood of witches, who are beaten with rods whenever they are caught. I know it. But the devil does not forsake his daughters. The witch has sense enough, when she enters Kassa by the Eperies gate, to come, not with her crutch in her hand and her bundle on her back, but in a jingling sledge, drawn by three horses; and when I throw aside this ragged mantle, I also am a person of honor."

Red Barbara let the mantle fall from her shoulder, and took the red cloth from her head, and Michal fancied she saw upon the witch the same purple mantle which had once belonged to her, and of which Valentine had said that it made her look like a queen. But the satin robe was somewhat stained and shabby, and Red Barbara looked more like a witch in it than ever. Nothing is so disgusting as when such shameless old women trick themselves out in gay apparel.

"Have no concern on my account! I also have come hither in a sledge. I have left it standing at the corner, and have thrown these rags over me. There is a thick mist. No one has seen me."

"What do you want of me?" asked Michal trembling.

"First of all that you will sit down on this little chair."

"Why?"

"I cannot bear to see you so pale."

"And what then?"

"I have a nice remedy against all such pale faces. If I rub your cheeks a little with it, they will bloom like roses."

"What? You would rouge my face," cried Michal, with a shudder, retreating into the furthest corner of the shop, and holding her hands before her face.

"Don't be so scared! This remedy only lends a red color to a pale cheek. Who's the worse for that? Come here, I say, when I call you! Have I not anointed your face once before. Then, indeed, I covered you with ugly freckles. That pleased the lover you had then. The lover you have now likes it otherwise."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, oh! You want to know everything beforehand, do you? Won't you trust me till I have told you everything from beginning to end? Very well, then, I'll tell you. The fool who adores you, the great, rich lord, awaits you near to the town, in the Eperies tavern. He has harnessed five fleet horses to his sledge. My sledge will carry you to him."

"Me?"

"Don't be afraid. You won't catch cold. I've brought a fur mantle with me."

"I am to fly from here!"

"You can do it now. Your husband is not at home."

"By the mercy of God, I implore you to depart from me."

"Name not that potentate, for by so doing, you only offend the devil, whose friendship we have now much need of. We have not much time to lose. The great lord must travel to Poland the day after to-morrow to the Prince; he will take you with him wherever he goes, to Cracow, to Warsaw. He will make a noble lady of you, and when you have had enough of him you can come back to your present husband. You can make him believe that you went away to see your father the Keszmár professor."

"Depart from me, Satan!" cried Michal, violently removing the witch's arms from her body.

"That's right! cry aloud! Make a noise that the servants and neighbors may come running up. Let them lock me up and make me confess all about our acquaintance. That will be very pleasant for both of us, won't it?"

"Have mercy upon me and depart!"

"I'm not such a fool as that. You are the little goose that lays me the golden eggs."

"I'll give you all my money, all my jewels, only do not ruin me."

"Don't talk to me of compassion and mercy! I hate you. In the first place, I can't endure that a person I can make just like myself should be a pious, church-going, happy woman. In the second place, I've given my word to bring you with me. My reputation as a witch is at stake. And, finally, I'm furious with you because you tried to deceive me. You lied to me. You told me you lived in one place, when you lived in another, so that I might not find you. Instead of honoring and supporting me as your adopted mother, you paid me off once for all with a beggarly pittance that only made my mouth water for more. Now I don't mean to let you escape from my clutches again. When once you have given yourself up to me, you are mine forever, and if you are mine you are the devil's. Come along with me!"

A mist swam before Michal's eyes, her feet tottered, her whole body was palsied. She could not speak, she only staggered, and sought with her hands for a support to keep her from falling.

"If you faint," whispered Barbara, "it will be all the worse for you, for then I shall take you in my arms and carry you off. The sledge is close at hand, the mist is thick, and the snow is falling. No one will ever find out whither you have vanished."

Michal shuddered all over, and fell her full length upon the floor.

* * * * *

Good Dame Sarah did not take her usual afternoon nap that day. On the contrary, she took out her Bible and read therefrom in a loud voice to keep herself awake.

All at once it occurred to her to see what Michal was about. She went up to her room, but she was not there.

A side door which led from Michal's door to the basement stood open. The young woman must consequently have gone out through this door.

The wind had blown the freshly fallen snow into the corridor, and in this snow Dame Sarah recognized the impressions of Michal's small, narrow boots. These footprints led her right down to the gate, and thence, guided by the patches of snow which Michal had shaken from her feet, she arrived at the door of the butcher's shop.

She crept toward it and began to listen. Then she suddenly tore open the door and rushed in.

Red Barbara was stooping over the form of the senseless woman, and grasping her round the body in order to raise her up and carry her away.

"So I've caught you at last, eh! you horrible, godless witch!"

The hag, taken quite by surprise, uttered a hoarse shriek, like a vulture startled from her prey and, springing up from Michal's side, extended her crooked fingers like the talons of a bird of prey, and raised them aloft to strike. But her claws would have been of little use to her, even if she had borrowed them from her patron Beelzebub himself, against the attack which Dame Sarah in her rage and fury now made upon her.

That lady's iron hand seized the witch with irresistible might. In vain she twisted and wriggled. Dame Sarah bent the witch's body back over the chopping-board.

"Let me go, woman!" yelled Barbara, with bloody, foaming lips. "Don't hold me like that or you'll rue it! I can bite, and my bite is worse than that of a mad dog. I'll drag you down to hell with me if you don't let me go."

"You'd bite me, you b----, would you?" cried Dame Sarah, with grim fury; "then bite yourself!" and with that, thrusting one of Barbara's arms against Barbara's own mouth, she forced the witch's clenched fist in between her wide open jaws. "Bite away, and choke!"

The face of the witch was already livid, her eyes were starting out of their sockets, she was very near being choked with her own fist. And Dame Sarah would certainly have bestowed a great benefit upon her own family, and all the powers in heaven and earth would certainly have forgiven her, if she had not loosed her hold upon the evil creature till its pestilential soul had gone to hell.

But it was otherwise decreed in the great book of predestination.

The uproar made by the two struggling women drew the whole household to the spot. The servants hastened promptly to the assistance of their mistress, and after tearing a considerable quantity of hair out of Red Barbara's head, they tied her hands behind her and, as she would not go willingly, they dragged her through the snow to the lockup. All the way thither the witch never ceased shouting: "For this I'll revenge myself on your whole house."

Michal knew nothing of all this, for she lay in a swoon. It was already late in the evening when she came to herself and gradually recognized the faces of those who stood round her.