Part 35 (1/2)
”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 G.o.d'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 un.o.bserved. 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 sc.r.a.ping 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 c.o.c.kchafer! You may be quite sure that I have not come all the way to your dismal town of Ka.s.sa for my own amus.e.m.e.nt, 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 Ka.s.sa, seek there my wondrous little flower, the pretty wife of Valentine Kalondai, your own dear daughter, whom you got married to her husband at Bartfa, 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 s.h.i.+ne 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.”