Debts of Honor Part 80

"Well if you know so much, you must also know that I am married, fool!"

The gypsy woman slyly winked.

"I am no fool: my eyes are not bad. I know the wild dove from the tame.

You are no married woman, young lady: you are still a maiden. I have looked into the eyes of many girls and women: I know which is which. A girl's eye lurks beneath the eyelids, as if she were looking always out of an ambuscade, as if she were always afraid somebody would notice her.

A woman's eye always flashes as if she were looking for somebody. When a girl says in jest 'I am a married woman,' she blushes: if she were a woman, she would smile. You are certainly still unmarried, young lady."

Czipra was annoyed at having opened a conversation with her. She felt that her face was really burning. She hastened to the open fire-place, driving the servant away that she might put her burning face down to the flaming fire.

The gypsy woman became more obtrusive, seeing she had put the girl to confusion. She sidled up to her.

"I see more, beautiful young lady. The girl that blushes quickly has much sorrow and many desires. Your ladyship has joy and sorrow too."

"Oh, away with you!" exclaimed Czipra hastily.

It is not so easy to get rid of a gypsy woman, once she has firmly planted her foot.

"Yet I know a very good remedy for that."

"I have already told you to be off."

"Which will make the bridegroom as tame as a lamb that always runs after its mistress."

"I don't want your remedies."

"It is no potion I am talking of, merely an enchantment."

"Throw her out!" Czipra commanded the servants.

"You won't throw me out, girls: rather listen to what I say. Which of you would like to know what you must do to enchant the young fellows so that even if every particle of them were full of falsity, they could not deceive you in their affection. Well, Susie: I see you're laughing at it. And you, Kati? Why, I saw your Joseph speaking to the bailiff's daughter at the fence: this spell would do him no harm."

All the grinning serving-maids, instead of rescuing Czipra from the woman, only a.s.sisted the latter in her siege. They surrounded her and even cut off Czipra's way, waiting curiously for what the gypsy would say.

"It is a harmless remedy, and costs nothing."

The gypsy woman drew nearer to Czipra.

"When at midnight the nightingale sings below your window, take notice on what branch it sat. Go out bare-footed, break down that branch, set it in a flower-pot, put it in your window, sprinkle it with water from your mouth: before the branch droops, your lover will return, and will never leave you again."

The girls laughed loudly at the gypsy woman's enchantment.

The woman held her hand out before Czipra in cringing supplication.

"Dear, beautiful young lady, scorn not to reward me with something for the blessing of G.o.d."

Czipra's pocket was always full of all kinds of small coins, of all values, according to the custom of those days--when one man had to be paid in coppers, another in silver. Czipra filled her hand and began to search among the ma.s.s for the smallest copper, a kreutzer,[76] as the correct alms for a beggar.

[Footnote 76: One-half of a penny.]

"Golden lady," the gypsy woman thanked her. "I have just such a girl at home for sale, not so beautiful as you, but just as tall. She too has a bridegroom, who will take her off as soon as he can."

Czipra now began to choose from the silver coins.

"But he cannot take her, for we have not money enough to pay the priest."

Czipra picked out the largest of the silver coins and gave it to the gypsy woman.

The latter blessed her for it. "May G.o.d reward you with a handsome bridegroom, true in love till death!"

Then she shuffled on her way from the house.

Czipra reflectingly hummed to herself the refrain:

"A gypsy woman was my mother."

And Czipra meditated.

How prettily thought speaks! If only the tongue could utter all the dumb soul speaks to itself!

"Why art thou what thou art?

"Whether another's or mine, if only I had never seen thee!

"Either love me in return, or do not ask me to love thee at all.

"Be either cold or warm, but not lukewarm.

"If in pa.s.sing me, thou didst neither look at me, nor turn away, that would be good too: if sitting beside me thou shouldst draw me to thee, thou wouldst make me happy:--thou comest, smilest into mine eyes, graspest my hand, speakest tenderly to me, and then pa.s.sest by.

"A hundred times I think that, if thou dost not address me, I shall address thee: if thou dost not ask me, I shall look into thine eyes, and shall ask thee:

"'Dost thou love me?'

"If thou lovest, love truly.

"Why, I do not ask thee to bring down the moon from the heavens to me: merely, to pluck the rose from the branch.

"If thou pluckest it, thou canst tear it, and scatter its leaves upon the earth, thou must not wear it in thy hat, and answer with blushes, if they ask thee who gave it thee. Thou canst destroy it and tear it. A gypsy girl gave it.

"If thou lovest, why dost thou not love truly? If thou dost not love me, why dost thou follow me?

"If thou knewest thou didst not love me, why didst thou decoy me into thy net?

"He has cast a spell upon me: yet I would be of the race of witches.

"I know nothing. I am no wizard, my eye has no power.

"If I address him once, I kill him and myself.