THE PRINCESS AND THE GENTLEMAN.There was a princess whose mother had died of vexation because she was in love with a simple gentleman of the chamber, and would not hear of marrying anyone else, nor would she look at any prince who came to sue for her hand.The king, not only vexed at her perversity, but still more at the loss of his wife, determined to devise a punishment to cure them both. He had two suites of apartments walled up, therefore; in one he had the princess imprisoned, and in the other the gentleman of the chamber with whom she was in love. The latter, he commanded, should see no one, thinking thereby to weary him out; the former he allowed only to see such persons as he shouldappoint, these persons being the princes one or other of whom he wished her to marry; for he thought that in her weariness at being so shut up, she would welcome the hand of anyone who would be her deliverer. It was not so, however. When the cook came in to the princess with her dinner, she begged him to give her a chicken that had been killed several days, and kept till it had a bad smell.When her father now sent any prince to visit her she said, ‘It is no use my father sending you here, the reason why I cannot marry anyone is that I have a great defect; my breath smells so bad that it is not pleasant for anyone to live with me.’As the bad smell from the chicken was readily to be perceived in the room, they all believed her words and went away. There was one, indeed, who was so much pleased with her seeming candour that he thought he would excuse her defect, but on a second visit the smell of the dead chicken drove him away too.The cooks in the kitchen talked together after the manner of cooks, and thus the cook who waited on the princess told what had happened to the cook who waited on the other prisoner, and thus it came round to his ears also, what the princess had done for love of him. Her stratagem then suggested another to him. Accordingly he sent to crave urgently an audience of the king.When the king came in to him he said:‘Sire, closely as I have been confined and guarded, yet something of what goes on in the outer world has reached my ears, and the fact which has the greatest interest for me has naturally been told to me. I now learn that the reason why your daughter has refused the suit of all the princes is not as we thought, her love for me, but a certain personal defect, which in politeness I will not name more particularly. But that being so, my desire to marry her is, of course, cured like that of others; so if your majesty will give me my liberty I will go awayto a far country, and your majesty would never hear of me any more.’The king was delighted to get rid of him, for he believed that if he were at a distance the great obstacle to his daughter’s happiness would be removed. As he knew nothing about the chicken, he thought that all the suitors had believed the princess’s representations upon her simple word; and as he very well knew she had no defect, he thought the time would come when some prince should please her, whom she also should please. Therefore, he very willingly gave the gentleman his liberty, and bid him godspeed on his journey.The gentleman, however, before setting out, went to his friend the cook, and, giving him three hundred scudi, begged him to house him for a few nights, while he dug out an underground passage between the garden and the apartment where the princess was imprisoned.In the garden was a handsome terrace, all set out with life-sized statues; under one of these the gentleman worked his way, till he had reached the princess’s chamber.‘You here!’ exclaimed the princess in great astonishment, as soon as he had made his way through.‘Yes; I have come to fetch you,’ he replied.She did not wait for a second injunction to escape from prison, but gathering all the money and jewels she had at command, she followed him through the underground way he had made.As soon as they had reached the free air, the gentleman replaced the statue, and no one could guess by which way they had passed. Then they went to a church to be married, and, after that, to a city a long way off, as the gentleman had promised the king he would.For a long time they lived very happily on the money and jewels each had brought from home; but, by-and-by, these came to an end, and neither durst write formore, for fear of betraying where they were. So at last, having no means of living, they engaged themselves to a rich lady who had a large mansion;1the one as butler,2and the other as nurse.3Here they were well content to live at peace; and the lady was well content to have two such faithful and intelligent dependents, and they might have lived here till the end of their lives, but for a coincidence4which strangely disconcerted them, as you shall hear, as well as what came of it.One day there came to visit the lady, their mistress, a nobleman belonging to the king’s court. At dinner time the princess had to come to table along with the little daughter of the house, of whom she had the charge. Great was her terror when she recognised in the guest of the day one so familiar to herself and so near the sovereign. In conformity with the lowliness of the station she had assumed, she could escape actually talking to him, and she did her best to withdraw herself from his notice. She half hoped she had succeeded, when suddenly the butler had to come into the room to communicate an important despatch which had just arrived, to the mistress of the house. The princess could not restrain an anxious glance at the stranger, to see if he betrayed any sign of recognition; but he was used to courts, and therefore to dissemble; nor could she satisfy herself that he had discovered either of them. It was so likely that he should, however, that she was filled with fear, and he was no sooner gone than she held a long consultation with her husband as to what course they should pursue.In the end, the difficulty of finding other employment decided them to remain, for the probability that they would be tracked seemed remote. After all, they reasoned, was it likely that the nobleman should think it worth while to observe two persons occupying such humble posts with sufficient attention to see who they were or who they were not?The king meantime had been searching everywhere for his daughter, not being able by any means to divine how she could have escaped. Then one morning, all this time after, the nobleman comes down upon him with the news:‘I have found the princess. She is living as nurse to the Duchessa such a one, and her husband is the butler.’The king could not rest a moment after he had heard the news; his travelling carriage was ordered round, and away he drove. It was just dinner-time when he arrived at the Duchessa’s palace. If the princess had been terrified before, at being called to sit at table with a nobleman of the court, judge how much greater was her alarm when she saw her father himself seated at the board!Great as had been his indignation, however, the joy of again meeting his child after the long separation blotted out all his anger, and after embracing her tenderly, he placed her by his side at the table. It was only when he came to take leave, and realised that she really belonged to another that his ire broke forth again. At this point the Duchessa put in a word. She highly extolled the excellent qualities of her butler, and declared he had been so skilful in the administration of her affairs, that he deserved to have a kingdom committed to him. In short, she softened the king’s heart so completely that she brought him to own that, as he had now grown very old and feeble, he could not do better than recognise him for his son-in-law, and associate him with himself in the government.And so he did,5and they all lived happily.1‘Palazzo.’↑2‘Credenziere,’ confidential servant.↑3‘Aia,’ upper nurse, nursery governess.↑4‘Combinazione.’↑5‘E così fece’ (and thus he did) is another of the expressions in universal use in Rome in tale-telling, forming a sort of refrain.↑THE HAPPY COUPLE.1I can tell you a story,2or two perhaps. What a number I used to know, to be sure! But what can I do? It is thirty years and more since anyone has asked me for them, and it’s hard to put one’s ideas together after such a time. Youmustn’tmind if I put the wrong part of the story before, and have to go backwards and forwards a little.I know there was one that ran thus:—There was a married couple who lived so happy and content and fond of each other, that they never had a word of dispute about anything the live-long day, but only thought of helping and pleasing each other.The Devil saw this, and determined to set them by the ears; but how was he to do it? Such love and peace reigned in their home, that he couldn’t find any way into the place. After prowling and prowling about, and finding no means of entrance, what does he do? He went to an old woman,—she must have been one of those who dabble with things they have no business to touch,—and said to her:‘You must do this job for me!’‘That’s no great matter,’ answered the old hag.3‘Give me ten scudi for my niece and a new pair of shoes for me, and I’ll settle the matter.’‘Here are the ten scudi,’ said the Devil; ‘it will be time enough to talk about the shoes when we see how you do the business.’The bad old woman set off accordingly with her niece and the ten scudi, instructing her by the way what she was to do.This husband and wife lived in a place where there was a house on one side and a shop on the other, so that through a window in the house where they lived they could give an eye to anything that went on in the shop.Choosing a moment when the man was alone in the shop, she sent the girl in with the ten scudi; and the girl, who had been told what to do, selected a dress, and a handkerchief, and a number of fine things, and paid her ten scudi. Then she proceeded leisurely to put them on, and to walk up and down the shop in them. Meantime the bad old woman went up to the wife:—‘Poor woman!’ she said. ‘Poor woman! Such a good woman as you are, and to have such a hypocrite of a husband!’‘My husband a hypocrite!’ answered the wife. ‘What can you mean—he is the best man that ever was.’‘Ah! he makes you think so, poor simple soul. But the truth is, he is very different from what you think.’So they went on conversing, and the bad old woman all the time watching what was going on in the shop till the right moment came. Just as the girl was flaunting about and showing herself off, she said:‘Look here, he has given all those things to that girl there.’And though the wife did not believe a word, curiosity prompted her to look, and there she saw the girl bowing herself out with as many thanks and adieus as if the poor man had really given her the things she had bought.‘Perhaps you will believe that!’ observed the bad old woman.‘Indeed, I cannot help believing it,’ answered the wife, ‘but never otherwise should I have thought it; and I owe you a great deal for opening my eyes;’ and she gave her a whole cheese.4‘I know what I shall do,’ she continued, as she sobbed over her lost peace of mind; ‘I shall show him I know his bad conduct by having no dinner ready for him when he comes up by-and-by.’‘That’s right,’ said the bad old woman. ‘Do so, and show him you are not going to be trampled on for thesake of a drab of a girl like that;’ and she tied her cheese up in a handkerchief, and went her way.Down she went now to the husband, and plied him with suspicions of his wife, similar to those she had suggested to her against him. The husband was even less willing to listen to her than the wife had been, and when at last he drove her away, she said:‘You think she’s busy all the morning preparing your dinner; but instead of that, she’s talking to those you wouldn’t like her to talk with. And you see now if to-day she hasn’t been at this game so long that she has forgotten your dinner altogether.’The husband turned a deaf ear, and continued attending to his shop; but when he went into the house and found no dinner ready, it seemed as if all that the bad old woman had said was come true.He was too sad for words, so they didn’t have much of a quarrel, but there could not but be a coldness after such an extraordinary event as a day without dinner.The husband went back to his shop and mused. The wife sat alone in her room crying; presently the old hag came back to her.‘Well, did you tell him you had found him out?’ she inquired.‘No! I hadn’t courage to do that. And he was so patient about there being no dinner, that I felt quite sorry to have suspected him. Oh, you who have been so clever in pointing out my misery to me, can you not tell me some means of reconciliation?’‘Yes, there is one; but I don’t know if you can manage it.’‘Oh yes; I would doanything!’‘Then you must watch till he is quite sound asleep, and take a sharp razor and cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of his beard, quite close to the skin. If you do that it will all come right again.’‘It seems a very odd remedy,’ said the wife; ‘but if you say it will do, I suppose it will, and thank you kindly for the advice;’ and she gave her another cheese.Then the witch went back to the husband.‘I suppose I was mistaken, and you found your dinner ready after all?’ she said.‘No!’ he replied; ‘you were right about there being no dinner; but I am certain there was some cause for there being none, other than what you say.’‘What other cause should there be?’ exclaimed the old woman.‘That I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But some other cause I am persuaded there must have been.’‘Well, if you are so infatuated, I will give you another token that I am right,’ replied the old woman. ‘You don’t deserve that I should save your life, but I am so goodnatured, I can’t help warning you. To-night, I have reason to know, she intends to murder you. You just give some make-believe snoring, but mind you don’t sleep, whatever you do; and you see if she doesn’t take up one of your razors to stab you in the throat.’The good husband refused to believe a word, and drove her away. Nevertheless, when night came he felt not a little anxious; and if he had tried to sleep ever so much he could not, for he felt so excited. Then curiosity to see if the woman’s words would come true overcame him, and he pretended to snore.He had not been snoring thus long, when the wife took up the razor and came all trembling to the bedside, and lifted up his beard.A cold sweat crept over the poor husband as she approached—not for fear of his life, which he could easily rescue, as he was awake—but because the proof seemed there that the old hag had spoken the truth. However, instead of taking it for granted it was so, and refusing to hear any justification—perhaps killing her on the spot, asshe had hoped and expected,—he calmly seized her arm, and said:‘Tell me, what are you going to do with that razor?’The wife sank on her knees by his side, crying:‘I cannot expect you to believe me, but this is really how it was. An old woman came and told me you were making love to a young girl in the shop, and showed me how she was bowing and scraping to you. I was so vexed, that to show you my anger I got no dinner ready; but afterwards, I felt as if I should like to ask you all about it, to make sure there was no mistake: only after what I had done, I didn’t know how to begin speaking to you again. Then I asked the old woman if she couldn’t tell me some means of bringing things straight again; and she said, if I could cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of your beard, all would come right. But I can’t expect you to believe it.’‘Yes, I do,’ replied the husband. ‘The same old wretch came to me, and wanted me in like manner to believe all manner of evil things of you, but I refused to believe you could do anything wrong. So I had more confidence in you than you had in me. But still we were both very nearly making ourselves very foolish and very unhappy; so we will take a lesson never to doubt each other again.’And after that there never was a word between them any more.When the Devil saw how the old woman had spoilt the affair, he took the pair of shoes he was to have given her, and tied them on to a long cane which he fastened on the top of a mountain, and there they dangled before her eyes, but she could never get at them.[This is just the Siddi Kür story of the mischief-making fox, which I have given as ‘The Perfidious Friend’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ and similar to the first Pantcha Tantra story.]1‘I sposi Felici.’↑2‘Esempio,’ see preface. ‘Esempiuccio,’ a termination of endearment, meaning in this place ‘a nice “esempio”.’↑3‘Vecchiaccia,’ bad old woman.↑4‘Forma di formaggio,’ a whole cheese. ‘Cacio,’ the proper word forcheese, is almost entirely superseded by ‘formaggio,’ which comes from ‘forma,’ the press or mould in which it is made.↑WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ROOM OF A HOTEL.1They say there was a countess who was very fond of her husband, and her husband was very fond of her; and they vowed nothing should ever make the one think ill of the other.One day the brother of the countess, who had been long away at the wars, and whom the count had never seen, came back to see her just while the count was out.‘Now we’ll have some fun,’ said the countess. ‘We’ll watch till my husband is coming home, and then as he comes into the room you just be kissing me; he will be so astonished to see a stranger kissing me, he will not know what to make of it. Then in five minutes we will tell him who you really are, and it will make a good laugh.’The brother thought it would be a good joke, and they did as she had said.It happened, however, that by accident2the count did not that day as usual come into his wife’s room, but passing along the terrace in front of it, he saw, as she had arranged, one who was a stranger to him kissing her.Then he went into his room, and calling his confidential servant3he told him what had happened, and adding, ‘You will never see me any more,’ went his way.The countess waited on and on for her husband to come in, full of impatience to have her joke out. But when she found he did not come at all, she went into hisroom to seek him there. There she found the servant, who told her what the Count had said, and the desperate resolution he had taken.‘What have I done!’ exclaimed the terrified Countess. ‘Is it possible that I am to be punished thus for a harmless joke!’Then, without saying anything to anyone she wrapped her travelling cloak about her, and set out to seek her husband.The Count had walked on till he could walk no farther, and then he had gone into an inn, where he hired a room for a week; but he went wandering about the woods in misery and despair, and only came in at an hour of night.4The Countess also walked on till she could walk no farther, and thus she came to the same inn; but as she had only a woman’s strength the same journey took her a much longer time, and it was the afternoon of the next day when she arrived. She too asked for a room, but the host assured her with many expressions of regret, that he had not a single room vacant. The Countess pleaded her weariness; the man reiterated his inability to serve her.‘Give me only a room to rest a little while in,’ she begged; ‘just a couple of hours, and then I will start again and journey farther.’Really compassionating her in her fatigue, the man now said:‘If you will be satisfied with that much, I can give you a room for a couple of hours; but no more.’She was fain to be satisfied with that, as she could get no more, and the host showed her into her husband’s room, which he would not want till ‘an hour of night.’By accident, however, the Count came in that night an hour earlier, and very much surprised he was to find a lady in his room. The Countess, equally surprised to see a stranger enter, pulled her veil over her face, so that they did not recognise each other.‘I am sorry to disturb you, madam, but this room, I must inform you, I have engaged,’ said the count; but sorrow had so altered his voice that the countess did not know it again.‘I hope you will spare me,’ replied the Countess. ‘They gave me this room to rest in for two hours, and I have come so long a way that I really need the rest.’‘I can hardly believe that a lady of gentle condition can have come a very long way, all alone and on foot, for there is no carriage in the yard; so I can only consider this a frivolous pretext,’ replied the Count, for sorrow had embittered him.‘Indeed it is too true though,’ continued the Countess. ‘I came all the way from such a place (and she named his own town) without stopping for one moment’s rest.’‘Indeed!’ said the Count, his interest roused at the mention of his own town; ‘and pray what need had you to use such haste to get away from that good town?’‘I had no need to haste to leave the place,’ replied the Countess, hurt at the implied suspicion that she was running away for shame. ‘I hasted to arrive at another place.’‘And that other place was ——?’ persisted the Count, who felt that her intrusion on his privacy gave him a right to cross-question her.The Countess was puzzled how to reply. She had no idea what place she was making for.‘ThatI don’t know,’ she said at last, with no little embarrassment.‘You will permit me to say that you seem to have no adequate reason to allege for this unwarrantable occupation of my room; and what little you tell me certainly in no way inclines me to take a favourable view of the affair.’The Countess was once more stung by the manner in which he seemed to view her journey, and feeling bound to clear herself, she replied:‘If you only knew what my journey is about, you would not speak so!’ and she burst into a flood of tears.Softened by her distress, the Count said in a kinder tone:‘Had you been pleased to confide that to me at first, maybe I had not spoken so; but till you tell me what it is, what opinion can I form?’‘This is it,’ answered the Countess, still sobbing. ‘Yesterday I was the happiest woman on the face of the earth, living in love and confidence with the best husband with whom woman was ever blessed. So strong was my confidence that I hesitated not to trifle with this great happiness. My brother came home from the wars, a stranger to my husband. “Let him see you kiss me,” I said, “it will seem so strange that we will make him laugh heartily afterwards.” He saw him kiss me, but waited for no explanation. He went away without a word, as indeed (fool that I was) I well deserved, and I journey on till I overtake him.’The Count had risen to his feet, and had torn the veil from her face.‘It can be no other but my own!’ he exclaimed, in a voice from which sorrow being banished his own tones sounded forth, and clasped her in his arms.1‘Una Camera di Locanda.’↑2‘Combinazione.’↑3‘Credenziere.’↑4‘Un ora di notte’; an hour after the evening ‘Ave.’↑THE COUNTESS’S CAT.1There was a very rich Countess who was a widow and lived all alone, with no companion but only a cat, after her husband died. The greatest care was taken of this cat, and every day a chicken was boiled on purpose for him.One day the Countessa went out to spend the day at afriend’s villa in the Campagna, and she said to the waiting woman:‘Mind the cat has his chicken just the same as if I were at home.’‘Yes! Signora Countessa, leave that to me,’ answered the woman; but the Countess was no sooner gone out than she said to the man-servant:‘The cat has the chicken every day; suppose we have it to-day?’The man said, ‘To be sure!’ and they ate the chicken themselves, giving the cat only the inside; but they threw the bones down in the usual corner, to make it appear as if he had eaten the whole chicken.The cat said nothing, but looked on with great eyes, full of meaning.2When the Countess came back that evening the cat, instead of going out to meet her as he always did, remained still in his place and said nothing.‘What’s the matter with the cat? Hasn’t he had his chicken?’ asked the Countess, immediately.‘Yes! Signora Countessa,’ answered the cameriera. ‘See, there are the bones on the floor, where he always leaves them.’The Countessa could not deny the testimony of her eyes, so she said nothing more but went up to bed.The cat followed her as he always did, for he slept on her bed; but he followed at a distance, without purring or rubbing himself against her. The Countess saw something was wrong, but she didn’t know what to make of it, and went to bed as usual.That night the cat throttled3the Countess, and killed her.The cat is very intelligent in his own interest, but he is a traitor.‘It would have been more intelligent,’ I observed, ‘if he had throttled the waiting woman in this instance.’Not at all; the cat’s reasoning was this:—If thou hadst not gone out and left me to the mercy of menials, this had not happened; therefore it was thou who hadst to die.This is quite true, for cats are always traitors. Dogs are faithful, cats are traitors.4[Perhaps this tale would have been hardly worth printing, but that the selfsame story was told me as a positive fact by an Irishman, who could not have come across the Italian story. In the Irish version it was its master the cat killed; in the wording of the narrator he ‘cut his throat.’]1‘Il Gatto della Contessa.’↑2‘Il gatto non dissi niente, ma guardava con certi occhi grossi, grossi, fissi.’↑3‘Strozzato,’ throttled; killed by wounding thestrozzo, throat.↑4‘E questo è un fatto vero, sa; perchè il gatto è traditore sempre. Il cane e fedele si, ma il gatto è traditore.’↑WHY CATS AND DOGS ALWAYS QUARREL.1‘Why do dogs and cats always fight, papa?’ we used to say.And he used to answer, ‘I’ll tell you why;’ and we all stood round listening.‘Once on a time dogs and cats were very good friends, and when the dogs went out of town they left their cards on the cats, and when the cats went out of town they left their cards on the dogs.’And we all sat round and listened and laughed.‘Once the dogs all went out of town and left their cards as usual on the cats; but they were a long time gone, for they were gone on a rat-hunt, and killed all the rats. When the cats heard that the dogs had taken to killing rats, they were furious against the dogs, and lay in wait for them and set upon them.‘“Set upon the dogs! at them! give it them!”’2shouted the cats, as they flew at them; and from that time to this, dogs and cats never meet without fighting.And we all stood round and laughed fit to split our sides.[Scheible, Schaltjahr I., 375, gives a more humorous version of this.]1‘Perchè litigano sempre i Cani ed i Gatti.’↑2‘Dàlli! Dàlli ai cani!’↑THE CATS WHO MADE THEIR MASTER RICH.‘Ah! as to cats and mice, listen andI’ll tell you something worth hearing!‘In America, once upon a time, there were no cats. Mice there were in plenty; mice everywhere; not peeping out of holes now and then, but infesting everything, swarming over every room; and when a family sat down to meals, the mice rushed upon the table and disputed the victuals with them.‘Then one thought of a plan; he freighted three ships; full, full of cats, and off to America with them. There he sold them for their weight in gold and more, andwhiff!the mice were swept away, and he made a great fortune. A great fortune, all out of cats!’[In the ‘Russian Folktales’ is also a version of the Whittington story, p. 43.]
THE PRINCESS AND THE GENTLEMAN.There was a princess whose mother had died of vexation because she was in love with a simple gentleman of the chamber, and would not hear of marrying anyone else, nor would she look at any prince who came to sue for her hand.The king, not only vexed at her perversity, but still more at the loss of his wife, determined to devise a punishment to cure them both. He had two suites of apartments walled up, therefore; in one he had the princess imprisoned, and in the other the gentleman of the chamber with whom she was in love. The latter, he commanded, should see no one, thinking thereby to weary him out; the former he allowed only to see such persons as he shouldappoint, these persons being the princes one or other of whom he wished her to marry; for he thought that in her weariness at being so shut up, she would welcome the hand of anyone who would be her deliverer. It was not so, however. When the cook came in to the princess with her dinner, she begged him to give her a chicken that had been killed several days, and kept till it had a bad smell.When her father now sent any prince to visit her she said, ‘It is no use my father sending you here, the reason why I cannot marry anyone is that I have a great defect; my breath smells so bad that it is not pleasant for anyone to live with me.’As the bad smell from the chicken was readily to be perceived in the room, they all believed her words and went away. There was one, indeed, who was so much pleased with her seeming candour that he thought he would excuse her defect, but on a second visit the smell of the dead chicken drove him away too.The cooks in the kitchen talked together after the manner of cooks, and thus the cook who waited on the princess told what had happened to the cook who waited on the other prisoner, and thus it came round to his ears also, what the princess had done for love of him. Her stratagem then suggested another to him. Accordingly he sent to crave urgently an audience of the king.When the king came in to him he said:‘Sire, closely as I have been confined and guarded, yet something of what goes on in the outer world has reached my ears, and the fact which has the greatest interest for me has naturally been told to me. I now learn that the reason why your daughter has refused the suit of all the princes is not as we thought, her love for me, but a certain personal defect, which in politeness I will not name more particularly. But that being so, my desire to marry her is, of course, cured like that of others; so if your majesty will give me my liberty I will go awayto a far country, and your majesty would never hear of me any more.’The king was delighted to get rid of him, for he believed that if he were at a distance the great obstacle to his daughter’s happiness would be removed. As he knew nothing about the chicken, he thought that all the suitors had believed the princess’s representations upon her simple word; and as he very well knew she had no defect, he thought the time would come when some prince should please her, whom she also should please. Therefore, he very willingly gave the gentleman his liberty, and bid him godspeed on his journey.The gentleman, however, before setting out, went to his friend the cook, and, giving him three hundred scudi, begged him to house him for a few nights, while he dug out an underground passage between the garden and the apartment where the princess was imprisoned.In the garden was a handsome terrace, all set out with life-sized statues; under one of these the gentleman worked his way, till he had reached the princess’s chamber.‘You here!’ exclaimed the princess in great astonishment, as soon as he had made his way through.‘Yes; I have come to fetch you,’ he replied.She did not wait for a second injunction to escape from prison, but gathering all the money and jewels she had at command, she followed him through the underground way he had made.As soon as they had reached the free air, the gentleman replaced the statue, and no one could guess by which way they had passed. Then they went to a church to be married, and, after that, to a city a long way off, as the gentleman had promised the king he would.For a long time they lived very happily on the money and jewels each had brought from home; but, by-and-by, these came to an end, and neither durst write formore, for fear of betraying where they were. So at last, having no means of living, they engaged themselves to a rich lady who had a large mansion;1the one as butler,2and the other as nurse.3Here they were well content to live at peace; and the lady was well content to have two such faithful and intelligent dependents, and they might have lived here till the end of their lives, but for a coincidence4which strangely disconcerted them, as you shall hear, as well as what came of it.One day there came to visit the lady, their mistress, a nobleman belonging to the king’s court. At dinner time the princess had to come to table along with the little daughter of the house, of whom she had the charge. Great was her terror when she recognised in the guest of the day one so familiar to herself and so near the sovereign. In conformity with the lowliness of the station she had assumed, she could escape actually talking to him, and she did her best to withdraw herself from his notice. She half hoped she had succeeded, when suddenly the butler had to come into the room to communicate an important despatch which had just arrived, to the mistress of the house. The princess could not restrain an anxious glance at the stranger, to see if he betrayed any sign of recognition; but he was used to courts, and therefore to dissemble; nor could she satisfy herself that he had discovered either of them. It was so likely that he should, however, that she was filled with fear, and he was no sooner gone than she held a long consultation with her husband as to what course they should pursue.In the end, the difficulty of finding other employment decided them to remain, for the probability that they would be tracked seemed remote. After all, they reasoned, was it likely that the nobleman should think it worth while to observe two persons occupying such humble posts with sufficient attention to see who they were or who they were not?The king meantime had been searching everywhere for his daughter, not being able by any means to divine how she could have escaped. Then one morning, all this time after, the nobleman comes down upon him with the news:‘I have found the princess. She is living as nurse to the Duchessa such a one, and her husband is the butler.’The king could not rest a moment after he had heard the news; his travelling carriage was ordered round, and away he drove. It was just dinner-time when he arrived at the Duchessa’s palace. If the princess had been terrified before, at being called to sit at table with a nobleman of the court, judge how much greater was her alarm when she saw her father himself seated at the board!Great as had been his indignation, however, the joy of again meeting his child after the long separation blotted out all his anger, and after embracing her tenderly, he placed her by his side at the table. It was only when he came to take leave, and realised that she really belonged to another that his ire broke forth again. At this point the Duchessa put in a word. She highly extolled the excellent qualities of her butler, and declared he had been so skilful in the administration of her affairs, that he deserved to have a kingdom committed to him. In short, she softened the king’s heart so completely that she brought him to own that, as he had now grown very old and feeble, he could not do better than recognise him for his son-in-law, and associate him with himself in the government.And so he did,5and they all lived happily.1‘Palazzo.’↑2‘Credenziere,’ confidential servant.↑3‘Aia,’ upper nurse, nursery governess.↑4‘Combinazione.’↑5‘E così fece’ (and thus he did) is another of the expressions in universal use in Rome in tale-telling, forming a sort of refrain.↑THE HAPPY COUPLE.1I can tell you a story,2or two perhaps. What a number I used to know, to be sure! But what can I do? It is thirty years and more since anyone has asked me for them, and it’s hard to put one’s ideas together after such a time. Youmustn’tmind if I put the wrong part of the story before, and have to go backwards and forwards a little.I know there was one that ran thus:—There was a married couple who lived so happy and content and fond of each other, that they never had a word of dispute about anything the live-long day, but only thought of helping and pleasing each other.The Devil saw this, and determined to set them by the ears; but how was he to do it? Such love and peace reigned in their home, that he couldn’t find any way into the place. After prowling and prowling about, and finding no means of entrance, what does he do? He went to an old woman,—she must have been one of those who dabble with things they have no business to touch,—and said to her:‘You must do this job for me!’‘That’s no great matter,’ answered the old hag.3‘Give me ten scudi for my niece and a new pair of shoes for me, and I’ll settle the matter.’‘Here are the ten scudi,’ said the Devil; ‘it will be time enough to talk about the shoes when we see how you do the business.’The bad old woman set off accordingly with her niece and the ten scudi, instructing her by the way what she was to do.This husband and wife lived in a place where there was a house on one side and a shop on the other, so that through a window in the house where they lived they could give an eye to anything that went on in the shop.Choosing a moment when the man was alone in the shop, she sent the girl in with the ten scudi; and the girl, who had been told what to do, selected a dress, and a handkerchief, and a number of fine things, and paid her ten scudi. Then she proceeded leisurely to put them on, and to walk up and down the shop in them. Meantime the bad old woman went up to the wife:—‘Poor woman!’ she said. ‘Poor woman! Such a good woman as you are, and to have such a hypocrite of a husband!’‘My husband a hypocrite!’ answered the wife. ‘What can you mean—he is the best man that ever was.’‘Ah! he makes you think so, poor simple soul. But the truth is, he is very different from what you think.’So they went on conversing, and the bad old woman all the time watching what was going on in the shop till the right moment came. Just as the girl was flaunting about and showing herself off, she said:‘Look here, he has given all those things to that girl there.’And though the wife did not believe a word, curiosity prompted her to look, and there she saw the girl bowing herself out with as many thanks and adieus as if the poor man had really given her the things she had bought.‘Perhaps you will believe that!’ observed the bad old woman.‘Indeed, I cannot help believing it,’ answered the wife, ‘but never otherwise should I have thought it; and I owe you a great deal for opening my eyes;’ and she gave her a whole cheese.4‘I know what I shall do,’ she continued, as she sobbed over her lost peace of mind; ‘I shall show him I know his bad conduct by having no dinner ready for him when he comes up by-and-by.’‘That’s right,’ said the bad old woman. ‘Do so, and show him you are not going to be trampled on for thesake of a drab of a girl like that;’ and she tied her cheese up in a handkerchief, and went her way.Down she went now to the husband, and plied him with suspicions of his wife, similar to those she had suggested to her against him. The husband was even less willing to listen to her than the wife had been, and when at last he drove her away, she said:‘You think she’s busy all the morning preparing your dinner; but instead of that, she’s talking to those you wouldn’t like her to talk with. And you see now if to-day she hasn’t been at this game so long that she has forgotten your dinner altogether.’The husband turned a deaf ear, and continued attending to his shop; but when he went into the house and found no dinner ready, it seemed as if all that the bad old woman had said was come true.He was too sad for words, so they didn’t have much of a quarrel, but there could not but be a coldness after such an extraordinary event as a day without dinner.The husband went back to his shop and mused. The wife sat alone in her room crying; presently the old hag came back to her.‘Well, did you tell him you had found him out?’ she inquired.‘No! I hadn’t courage to do that. And he was so patient about there being no dinner, that I felt quite sorry to have suspected him. Oh, you who have been so clever in pointing out my misery to me, can you not tell me some means of reconciliation?’‘Yes, there is one; but I don’t know if you can manage it.’‘Oh yes; I would doanything!’‘Then you must watch till he is quite sound asleep, and take a sharp razor and cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of his beard, quite close to the skin. If you do that it will all come right again.’‘It seems a very odd remedy,’ said the wife; ‘but if you say it will do, I suppose it will, and thank you kindly for the advice;’ and she gave her another cheese.Then the witch went back to the husband.‘I suppose I was mistaken, and you found your dinner ready after all?’ she said.‘No!’ he replied; ‘you were right about there being no dinner; but I am certain there was some cause for there being none, other than what you say.’‘What other cause should there be?’ exclaimed the old woman.‘That I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But some other cause I am persuaded there must have been.’‘Well, if you are so infatuated, I will give you another token that I am right,’ replied the old woman. ‘You don’t deserve that I should save your life, but I am so goodnatured, I can’t help warning you. To-night, I have reason to know, she intends to murder you. You just give some make-believe snoring, but mind you don’t sleep, whatever you do; and you see if she doesn’t take up one of your razors to stab you in the throat.’The good husband refused to believe a word, and drove her away. Nevertheless, when night came he felt not a little anxious; and if he had tried to sleep ever so much he could not, for he felt so excited. Then curiosity to see if the woman’s words would come true overcame him, and he pretended to snore.He had not been snoring thus long, when the wife took up the razor and came all trembling to the bedside, and lifted up his beard.A cold sweat crept over the poor husband as she approached—not for fear of his life, which he could easily rescue, as he was awake—but because the proof seemed there that the old hag had spoken the truth. However, instead of taking it for granted it was so, and refusing to hear any justification—perhaps killing her on the spot, asshe had hoped and expected,—he calmly seized her arm, and said:‘Tell me, what are you going to do with that razor?’The wife sank on her knees by his side, crying:‘I cannot expect you to believe me, but this is really how it was. An old woman came and told me you were making love to a young girl in the shop, and showed me how she was bowing and scraping to you. I was so vexed, that to show you my anger I got no dinner ready; but afterwards, I felt as if I should like to ask you all about it, to make sure there was no mistake: only after what I had done, I didn’t know how to begin speaking to you again. Then I asked the old woman if she couldn’t tell me some means of bringing things straight again; and she said, if I could cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of your beard, all would come right. But I can’t expect you to believe it.’‘Yes, I do,’ replied the husband. ‘The same old wretch came to me, and wanted me in like manner to believe all manner of evil things of you, but I refused to believe you could do anything wrong. So I had more confidence in you than you had in me. But still we were both very nearly making ourselves very foolish and very unhappy; so we will take a lesson never to doubt each other again.’And after that there never was a word between them any more.When the Devil saw how the old woman had spoilt the affair, he took the pair of shoes he was to have given her, and tied them on to a long cane which he fastened on the top of a mountain, and there they dangled before her eyes, but she could never get at them.[This is just the Siddi Kür story of the mischief-making fox, which I have given as ‘The Perfidious Friend’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ and similar to the first Pantcha Tantra story.]1‘I sposi Felici.’↑2‘Esempio,’ see preface. ‘Esempiuccio,’ a termination of endearment, meaning in this place ‘a nice “esempio”.’↑3‘Vecchiaccia,’ bad old woman.↑4‘Forma di formaggio,’ a whole cheese. ‘Cacio,’ the proper word forcheese, is almost entirely superseded by ‘formaggio,’ which comes from ‘forma,’ the press or mould in which it is made.↑WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ROOM OF A HOTEL.1They say there was a countess who was very fond of her husband, and her husband was very fond of her; and they vowed nothing should ever make the one think ill of the other.One day the brother of the countess, who had been long away at the wars, and whom the count had never seen, came back to see her just while the count was out.‘Now we’ll have some fun,’ said the countess. ‘We’ll watch till my husband is coming home, and then as he comes into the room you just be kissing me; he will be so astonished to see a stranger kissing me, he will not know what to make of it. Then in five minutes we will tell him who you really are, and it will make a good laugh.’The brother thought it would be a good joke, and they did as she had said.It happened, however, that by accident2the count did not that day as usual come into his wife’s room, but passing along the terrace in front of it, he saw, as she had arranged, one who was a stranger to him kissing her.Then he went into his room, and calling his confidential servant3he told him what had happened, and adding, ‘You will never see me any more,’ went his way.The countess waited on and on for her husband to come in, full of impatience to have her joke out. But when she found he did not come at all, she went into hisroom to seek him there. There she found the servant, who told her what the Count had said, and the desperate resolution he had taken.‘What have I done!’ exclaimed the terrified Countess. ‘Is it possible that I am to be punished thus for a harmless joke!’Then, without saying anything to anyone she wrapped her travelling cloak about her, and set out to seek her husband.The Count had walked on till he could walk no farther, and then he had gone into an inn, where he hired a room for a week; but he went wandering about the woods in misery and despair, and only came in at an hour of night.4The Countess also walked on till she could walk no farther, and thus she came to the same inn; but as she had only a woman’s strength the same journey took her a much longer time, and it was the afternoon of the next day when she arrived. She too asked for a room, but the host assured her with many expressions of regret, that he had not a single room vacant. The Countess pleaded her weariness; the man reiterated his inability to serve her.‘Give me only a room to rest a little while in,’ she begged; ‘just a couple of hours, and then I will start again and journey farther.’Really compassionating her in her fatigue, the man now said:‘If you will be satisfied with that much, I can give you a room for a couple of hours; but no more.’She was fain to be satisfied with that, as she could get no more, and the host showed her into her husband’s room, which he would not want till ‘an hour of night.’By accident, however, the Count came in that night an hour earlier, and very much surprised he was to find a lady in his room. The Countess, equally surprised to see a stranger enter, pulled her veil over her face, so that they did not recognise each other.‘I am sorry to disturb you, madam, but this room, I must inform you, I have engaged,’ said the count; but sorrow had so altered his voice that the countess did not know it again.‘I hope you will spare me,’ replied the Countess. ‘They gave me this room to rest in for two hours, and I have come so long a way that I really need the rest.’‘I can hardly believe that a lady of gentle condition can have come a very long way, all alone and on foot, for there is no carriage in the yard; so I can only consider this a frivolous pretext,’ replied the Count, for sorrow had embittered him.‘Indeed it is too true though,’ continued the Countess. ‘I came all the way from such a place (and she named his own town) without stopping for one moment’s rest.’‘Indeed!’ said the Count, his interest roused at the mention of his own town; ‘and pray what need had you to use such haste to get away from that good town?’‘I had no need to haste to leave the place,’ replied the Countess, hurt at the implied suspicion that she was running away for shame. ‘I hasted to arrive at another place.’‘And that other place was ——?’ persisted the Count, who felt that her intrusion on his privacy gave him a right to cross-question her.The Countess was puzzled how to reply. She had no idea what place she was making for.‘ThatI don’t know,’ she said at last, with no little embarrassment.‘You will permit me to say that you seem to have no adequate reason to allege for this unwarrantable occupation of my room; and what little you tell me certainly in no way inclines me to take a favourable view of the affair.’The Countess was once more stung by the manner in which he seemed to view her journey, and feeling bound to clear herself, she replied:‘If you only knew what my journey is about, you would not speak so!’ and she burst into a flood of tears.Softened by her distress, the Count said in a kinder tone:‘Had you been pleased to confide that to me at first, maybe I had not spoken so; but till you tell me what it is, what opinion can I form?’‘This is it,’ answered the Countess, still sobbing. ‘Yesterday I was the happiest woman on the face of the earth, living in love and confidence with the best husband with whom woman was ever blessed. So strong was my confidence that I hesitated not to trifle with this great happiness. My brother came home from the wars, a stranger to my husband. “Let him see you kiss me,” I said, “it will seem so strange that we will make him laugh heartily afterwards.” He saw him kiss me, but waited for no explanation. He went away without a word, as indeed (fool that I was) I well deserved, and I journey on till I overtake him.’The Count had risen to his feet, and had torn the veil from her face.‘It can be no other but my own!’ he exclaimed, in a voice from which sorrow being banished his own tones sounded forth, and clasped her in his arms.1‘Una Camera di Locanda.’↑2‘Combinazione.’↑3‘Credenziere.’↑4‘Un ora di notte’; an hour after the evening ‘Ave.’↑THE COUNTESS’S CAT.1There was a very rich Countess who was a widow and lived all alone, with no companion but only a cat, after her husband died. The greatest care was taken of this cat, and every day a chicken was boiled on purpose for him.One day the Countessa went out to spend the day at afriend’s villa in the Campagna, and she said to the waiting woman:‘Mind the cat has his chicken just the same as if I were at home.’‘Yes! Signora Countessa, leave that to me,’ answered the woman; but the Countess was no sooner gone out than she said to the man-servant:‘The cat has the chicken every day; suppose we have it to-day?’The man said, ‘To be sure!’ and they ate the chicken themselves, giving the cat only the inside; but they threw the bones down in the usual corner, to make it appear as if he had eaten the whole chicken.The cat said nothing, but looked on with great eyes, full of meaning.2When the Countess came back that evening the cat, instead of going out to meet her as he always did, remained still in his place and said nothing.‘What’s the matter with the cat? Hasn’t he had his chicken?’ asked the Countess, immediately.‘Yes! Signora Countessa,’ answered the cameriera. ‘See, there are the bones on the floor, where he always leaves them.’The Countessa could not deny the testimony of her eyes, so she said nothing more but went up to bed.The cat followed her as he always did, for he slept on her bed; but he followed at a distance, without purring or rubbing himself against her. The Countess saw something was wrong, but she didn’t know what to make of it, and went to bed as usual.That night the cat throttled3the Countess, and killed her.The cat is very intelligent in his own interest, but he is a traitor.‘It would have been more intelligent,’ I observed, ‘if he had throttled the waiting woman in this instance.’Not at all; the cat’s reasoning was this:—If thou hadst not gone out and left me to the mercy of menials, this had not happened; therefore it was thou who hadst to die.This is quite true, for cats are always traitors. Dogs are faithful, cats are traitors.4[Perhaps this tale would have been hardly worth printing, but that the selfsame story was told me as a positive fact by an Irishman, who could not have come across the Italian story. In the Irish version it was its master the cat killed; in the wording of the narrator he ‘cut his throat.’]1‘Il Gatto della Contessa.’↑2‘Il gatto non dissi niente, ma guardava con certi occhi grossi, grossi, fissi.’↑3‘Strozzato,’ throttled; killed by wounding thestrozzo, throat.↑4‘E questo è un fatto vero, sa; perchè il gatto è traditore sempre. Il cane e fedele si, ma il gatto è traditore.’↑WHY CATS AND DOGS ALWAYS QUARREL.1‘Why do dogs and cats always fight, papa?’ we used to say.And he used to answer, ‘I’ll tell you why;’ and we all stood round listening.‘Once on a time dogs and cats were very good friends, and when the dogs went out of town they left their cards on the cats, and when the cats went out of town they left their cards on the dogs.’And we all sat round and listened and laughed.‘Once the dogs all went out of town and left their cards as usual on the cats; but they were a long time gone, for they were gone on a rat-hunt, and killed all the rats. When the cats heard that the dogs had taken to killing rats, they were furious against the dogs, and lay in wait for them and set upon them.‘“Set upon the dogs! at them! give it them!”’2shouted the cats, as they flew at them; and from that time to this, dogs and cats never meet without fighting.And we all stood round and laughed fit to split our sides.[Scheible, Schaltjahr I., 375, gives a more humorous version of this.]1‘Perchè litigano sempre i Cani ed i Gatti.’↑2‘Dàlli! Dàlli ai cani!’↑THE CATS WHO MADE THEIR MASTER RICH.‘Ah! as to cats and mice, listen andI’ll tell you something worth hearing!‘In America, once upon a time, there were no cats. Mice there were in plenty; mice everywhere; not peeping out of holes now and then, but infesting everything, swarming over every room; and when a family sat down to meals, the mice rushed upon the table and disputed the victuals with them.‘Then one thought of a plan; he freighted three ships; full, full of cats, and off to America with them. There he sold them for their weight in gold and more, andwhiff!the mice were swept away, and he made a great fortune. A great fortune, all out of cats!’[In the ‘Russian Folktales’ is also a version of the Whittington story, p. 43.]
THE PRINCESS AND THE GENTLEMAN.There was a princess whose mother had died of vexation because she was in love with a simple gentleman of the chamber, and would not hear of marrying anyone else, nor would she look at any prince who came to sue for her hand.The king, not only vexed at her perversity, but still more at the loss of his wife, determined to devise a punishment to cure them both. He had two suites of apartments walled up, therefore; in one he had the princess imprisoned, and in the other the gentleman of the chamber with whom she was in love. The latter, he commanded, should see no one, thinking thereby to weary him out; the former he allowed only to see such persons as he shouldappoint, these persons being the princes one or other of whom he wished her to marry; for he thought that in her weariness at being so shut up, she would welcome the hand of anyone who would be her deliverer. It was not so, however. When the cook came in to the princess with her dinner, she begged him to give her a chicken that had been killed several days, and kept till it had a bad smell.When her father now sent any prince to visit her she said, ‘It is no use my father sending you here, the reason why I cannot marry anyone is that I have a great defect; my breath smells so bad that it is not pleasant for anyone to live with me.’As the bad smell from the chicken was readily to be perceived in the room, they all believed her words and went away. There was one, indeed, who was so much pleased with her seeming candour that he thought he would excuse her defect, but on a second visit the smell of the dead chicken drove him away too.The cooks in the kitchen talked together after the manner of cooks, and thus the cook who waited on the princess told what had happened to the cook who waited on the other prisoner, and thus it came round to his ears also, what the princess had done for love of him. Her stratagem then suggested another to him. Accordingly he sent to crave urgently an audience of the king.When the king came in to him he said:‘Sire, closely as I have been confined and guarded, yet something of what goes on in the outer world has reached my ears, and the fact which has the greatest interest for me has naturally been told to me. I now learn that the reason why your daughter has refused the suit of all the princes is not as we thought, her love for me, but a certain personal defect, which in politeness I will not name more particularly. But that being so, my desire to marry her is, of course, cured like that of others; so if your majesty will give me my liberty I will go awayto a far country, and your majesty would never hear of me any more.’The king was delighted to get rid of him, for he believed that if he were at a distance the great obstacle to his daughter’s happiness would be removed. As he knew nothing about the chicken, he thought that all the suitors had believed the princess’s representations upon her simple word; and as he very well knew she had no defect, he thought the time would come when some prince should please her, whom she also should please. Therefore, he very willingly gave the gentleman his liberty, and bid him godspeed on his journey.The gentleman, however, before setting out, went to his friend the cook, and, giving him three hundred scudi, begged him to house him for a few nights, while he dug out an underground passage between the garden and the apartment where the princess was imprisoned.In the garden was a handsome terrace, all set out with life-sized statues; under one of these the gentleman worked his way, till he had reached the princess’s chamber.‘You here!’ exclaimed the princess in great astonishment, as soon as he had made his way through.‘Yes; I have come to fetch you,’ he replied.She did not wait for a second injunction to escape from prison, but gathering all the money and jewels she had at command, she followed him through the underground way he had made.As soon as they had reached the free air, the gentleman replaced the statue, and no one could guess by which way they had passed. Then they went to a church to be married, and, after that, to a city a long way off, as the gentleman had promised the king he would.For a long time they lived very happily on the money and jewels each had brought from home; but, by-and-by, these came to an end, and neither durst write formore, for fear of betraying where they were. So at last, having no means of living, they engaged themselves to a rich lady who had a large mansion;1the one as butler,2and the other as nurse.3Here they were well content to live at peace; and the lady was well content to have two such faithful and intelligent dependents, and they might have lived here till the end of their lives, but for a coincidence4which strangely disconcerted them, as you shall hear, as well as what came of it.One day there came to visit the lady, their mistress, a nobleman belonging to the king’s court. At dinner time the princess had to come to table along with the little daughter of the house, of whom she had the charge. Great was her terror when she recognised in the guest of the day one so familiar to herself and so near the sovereign. In conformity with the lowliness of the station she had assumed, she could escape actually talking to him, and she did her best to withdraw herself from his notice. She half hoped she had succeeded, when suddenly the butler had to come into the room to communicate an important despatch which had just arrived, to the mistress of the house. The princess could not restrain an anxious glance at the stranger, to see if he betrayed any sign of recognition; but he was used to courts, and therefore to dissemble; nor could she satisfy herself that he had discovered either of them. It was so likely that he should, however, that she was filled with fear, and he was no sooner gone than she held a long consultation with her husband as to what course they should pursue.In the end, the difficulty of finding other employment decided them to remain, for the probability that they would be tracked seemed remote. After all, they reasoned, was it likely that the nobleman should think it worth while to observe two persons occupying such humble posts with sufficient attention to see who they were or who they were not?The king meantime had been searching everywhere for his daughter, not being able by any means to divine how she could have escaped. Then one morning, all this time after, the nobleman comes down upon him with the news:‘I have found the princess. She is living as nurse to the Duchessa such a one, and her husband is the butler.’The king could not rest a moment after he had heard the news; his travelling carriage was ordered round, and away he drove. It was just dinner-time when he arrived at the Duchessa’s palace. If the princess had been terrified before, at being called to sit at table with a nobleman of the court, judge how much greater was her alarm when she saw her father himself seated at the board!Great as had been his indignation, however, the joy of again meeting his child after the long separation blotted out all his anger, and after embracing her tenderly, he placed her by his side at the table. It was only when he came to take leave, and realised that she really belonged to another that his ire broke forth again. At this point the Duchessa put in a word. She highly extolled the excellent qualities of her butler, and declared he had been so skilful in the administration of her affairs, that he deserved to have a kingdom committed to him. In short, she softened the king’s heart so completely that she brought him to own that, as he had now grown very old and feeble, he could not do better than recognise him for his son-in-law, and associate him with himself in the government.And so he did,5and they all lived happily.1‘Palazzo.’↑2‘Credenziere,’ confidential servant.↑3‘Aia,’ upper nurse, nursery governess.↑4‘Combinazione.’↑5‘E così fece’ (and thus he did) is another of the expressions in universal use in Rome in tale-telling, forming a sort of refrain.↑
THE PRINCESS AND THE GENTLEMAN.
There was a princess whose mother had died of vexation because she was in love with a simple gentleman of the chamber, and would not hear of marrying anyone else, nor would she look at any prince who came to sue for her hand.The king, not only vexed at her perversity, but still more at the loss of his wife, determined to devise a punishment to cure them both. He had two suites of apartments walled up, therefore; in one he had the princess imprisoned, and in the other the gentleman of the chamber with whom she was in love. The latter, he commanded, should see no one, thinking thereby to weary him out; the former he allowed only to see such persons as he shouldappoint, these persons being the princes one or other of whom he wished her to marry; for he thought that in her weariness at being so shut up, she would welcome the hand of anyone who would be her deliverer. It was not so, however. When the cook came in to the princess with her dinner, she begged him to give her a chicken that had been killed several days, and kept till it had a bad smell.When her father now sent any prince to visit her she said, ‘It is no use my father sending you here, the reason why I cannot marry anyone is that I have a great defect; my breath smells so bad that it is not pleasant for anyone to live with me.’As the bad smell from the chicken was readily to be perceived in the room, they all believed her words and went away. There was one, indeed, who was so much pleased with her seeming candour that he thought he would excuse her defect, but on a second visit the smell of the dead chicken drove him away too.The cooks in the kitchen talked together after the manner of cooks, and thus the cook who waited on the princess told what had happened to the cook who waited on the other prisoner, and thus it came round to his ears also, what the princess had done for love of him. Her stratagem then suggested another to him. Accordingly he sent to crave urgently an audience of the king.When the king came in to him he said:‘Sire, closely as I have been confined and guarded, yet something of what goes on in the outer world has reached my ears, and the fact which has the greatest interest for me has naturally been told to me. I now learn that the reason why your daughter has refused the suit of all the princes is not as we thought, her love for me, but a certain personal defect, which in politeness I will not name more particularly. But that being so, my desire to marry her is, of course, cured like that of others; so if your majesty will give me my liberty I will go awayto a far country, and your majesty would never hear of me any more.’The king was delighted to get rid of him, for he believed that if he were at a distance the great obstacle to his daughter’s happiness would be removed. As he knew nothing about the chicken, he thought that all the suitors had believed the princess’s representations upon her simple word; and as he very well knew she had no defect, he thought the time would come when some prince should please her, whom she also should please. Therefore, he very willingly gave the gentleman his liberty, and bid him godspeed on his journey.The gentleman, however, before setting out, went to his friend the cook, and, giving him three hundred scudi, begged him to house him for a few nights, while he dug out an underground passage between the garden and the apartment where the princess was imprisoned.In the garden was a handsome terrace, all set out with life-sized statues; under one of these the gentleman worked his way, till he had reached the princess’s chamber.‘You here!’ exclaimed the princess in great astonishment, as soon as he had made his way through.‘Yes; I have come to fetch you,’ he replied.She did not wait for a second injunction to escape from prison, but gathering all the money and jewels she had at command, she followed him through the underground way he had made.As soon as they had reached the free air, the gentleman replaced the statue, and no one could guess by which way they had passed. Then they went to a church to be married, and, after that, to a city a long way off, as the gentleman had promised the king he would.For a long time they lived very happily on the money and jewels each had brought from home; but, by-and-by, these came to an end, and neither durst write formore, for fear of betraying where they were. So at last, having no means of living, they engaged themselves to a rich lady who had a large mansion;1the one as butler,2and the other as nurse.3Here they were well content to live at peace; and the lady was well content to have two such faithful and intelligent dependents, and they might have lived here till the end of their lives, but for a coincidence4which strangely disconcerted them, as you shall hear, as well as what came of it.One day there came to visit the lady, their mistress, a nobleman belonging to the king’s court. At dinner time the princess had to come to table along with the little daughter of the house, of whom she had the charge. Great was her terror when she recognised in the guest of the day one so familiar to herself and so near the sovereign. In conformity with the lowliness of the station she had assumed, she could escape actually talking to him, and she did her best to withdraw herself from his notice. She half hoped she had succeeded, when suddenly the butler had to come into the room to communicate an important despatch which had just arrived, to the mistress of the house. The princess could not restrain an anxious glance at the stranger, to see if he betrayed any sign of recognition; but he was used to courts, and therefore to dissemble; nor could she satisfy herself that he had discovered either of them. It was so likely that he should, however, that she was filled with fear, and he was no sooner gone than she held a long consultation with her husband as to what course they should pursue.In the end, the difficulty of finding other employment decided them to remain, for the probability that they would be tracked seemed remote. After all, they reasoned, was it likely that the nobleman should think it worth while to observe two persons occupying such humble posts with sufficient attention to see who they were or who they were not?The king meantime had been searching everywhere for his daughter, not being able by any means to divine how she could have escaped. Then one morning, all this time after, the nobleman comes down upon him with the news:‘I have found the princess. She is living as nurse to the Duchessa such a one, and her husband is the butler.’The king could not rest a moment after he had heard the news; his travelling carriage was ordered round, and away he drove. It was just dinner-time when he arrived at the Duchessa’s palace. If the princess had been terrified before, at being called to sit at table with a nobleman of the court, judge how much greater was her alarm when she saw her father himself seated at the board!Great as had been his indignation, however, the joy of again meeting his child after the long separation blotted out all his anger, and after embracing her tenderly, he placed her by his side at the table. It was only when he came to take leave, and realised that she really belonged to another that his ire broke forth again. At this point the Duchessa put in a word. She highly extolled the excellent qualities of her butler, and declared he had been so skilful in the administration of her affairs, that he deserved to have a kingdom committed to him. In short, she softened the king’s heart so completely that she brought him to own that, as he had now grown very old and feeble, he could not do better than recognise him for his son-in-law, and associate him with himself in the government.And so he did,5and they all lived happily.
There was a princess whose mother had died of vexation because she was in love with a simple gentleman of the chamber, and would not hear of marrying anyone else, nor would she look at any prince who came to sue for her hand.
The king, not only vexed at her perversity, but still more at the loss of his wife, determined to devise a punishment to cure them both. He had two suites of apartments walled up, therefore; in one he had the princess imprisoned, and in the other the gentleman of the chamber with whom she was in love. The latter, he commanded, should see no one, thinking thereby to weary him out; the former he allowed only to see such persons as he shouldappoint, these persons being the princes one or other of whom he wished her to marry; for he thought that in her weariness at being so shut up, she would welcome the hand of anyone who would be her deliverer. It was not so, however. When the cook came in to the princess with her dinner, she begged him to give her a chicken that had been killed several days, and kept till it had a bad smell.
When her father now sent any prince to visit her she said, ‘It is no use my father sending you here, the reason why I cannot marry anyone is that I have a great defect; my breath smells so bad that it is not pleasant for anyone to live with me.’
As the bad smell from the chicken was readily to be perceived in the room, they all believed her words and went away. There was one, indeed, who was so much pleased with her seeming candour that he thought he would excuse her defect, but on a second visit the smell of the dead chicken drove him away too.
The cooks in the kitchen talked together after the manner of cooks, and thus the cook who waited on the princess told what had happened to the cook who waited on the other prisoner, and thus it came round to his ears also, what the princess had done for love of him. Her stratagem then suggested another to him. Accordingly he sent to crave urgently an audience of the king.
When the king came in to him he said:
‘Sire, closely as I have been confined and guarded, yet something of what goes on in the outer world has reached my ears, and the fact which has the greatest interest for me has naturally been told to me. I now learn that the reason why your daughter has refused the suit of all the princes is not as we thought, her love for me, but a certain personal defect, which in politeness I will not name more particularly. But that being so, my desire to marry her is, of course, cured like that of others; so if your majesty will give me my liberty I will go awayto a far country, and your majesty would never hear of me any more.’
The king was delighted to get rid of him, for he believed that if he were at a distance the great obstacle to his daughter’s happiness would be removed. As he knew nothing about the chicken, he thought that all the suitors had believed the princess’s representations upon her simple word; and as he very well knew she had no defect, he thought the time would come when some prince should please her, whom she also should please. Therefore, he very willingly gave the gentleman his liberty, and bid him godspeed on his journey.
The gentleman, however, before setting out, went to his friend the cook, and, giving him three hundred scudi, begged him to house him for a few nights, while he dug out an underground passage between the garden and the apartment where the princess was imprisoned.
In the garden was a handsome terrace, all set out with life-sized statues; under one of these the gentleman worked his way, till he had reached the princess’s chamber.
‘You here!’ exclaimed the princess in great astonishment, as soon as he had made his way through.
‘Yes; I have come to fetch you,’ he replied.
She did not wait for a second injunction to escape from prison, but gathering all the money and jewels she had at command, she followed him through the underground way he had made.
As soon as they had reached the free air, the gentleman replaced the statue, and no one could guess by which way they had passed. Then they went to a church to be married, and, after that, to a city a long way off, as the gentleman had promised the king he would.
For a long time they lived very happily on the money and jewels each had brought from home; but, by-and-by, these came to an end, and neither durst write formore, for fear of betraying where they were. So at last, having no means of living, they engaged themselves to a rich lady who had a large mansion;1the one as butler,2and the other as nurse.3Here they were well content to live at peace; and the lady was well content to have two such faithful and intelligent dependents, and they might have lived here till the end of their lives, but for a coincidence4which strangely disconcerted them, as you shall hear, as well as what came of it.
One day there came to visit the lady, their mistress, a nobleman belonging to the king’s court. At dinner time the princess had to come to table along with the little daughter of the house, of whom she had the charge. Great was her terror when she recognised in the guest of the day one so familiar to herself and so near the sovereign. In conformity with the lowliness of the station she had assumed, she could escape actually talking to him, and she did her best to withdraw herself from his notice. She half hoped she had succeeded, when suddenly the butler had to come into the room to communicate an important despatch which had just arrived, to the mistress of the house. The princess could not restrain an anxious glance at the stranger, to see if he betrayed any sign of recognition; but he was used to courts, and therefore to dissemble; nor could she satisfy herself that he had discovered either of them. It was so likely that he should, however, that she was filled with fear, and he was no sooner gone than she held a long consultation with her husband as to what course they should pursue.
In the end, the difficulty of finding other employment decided them to remain, for the probability that they would be tracked seemed remote. After all, they reasoned, was it likely that the nobleman should think it worth while to observe two persons occupying such humble posts with sufficient attention to see who they were or who they were not?
The king meantime had been searching everywhere for his daughter, not being able by any means to divine how she could have escaped. Then one morning, all this time after, the nobleman comes down upon him with the news:
‘I have found the princess. She is living as nurse to the Duchessa such a one, and her husband is the butler.’
The king could not rest a moment after he had heard the news; his travelling carriage was ordered round, and away he drove. It was just dinner-time when he arrived at the Duchessa’s palace. If the princess had been terrified before, at being called to sit at table with a nobleman of the court, judge how much greater was her alarm when she saw her father himself seated at the board!
Great as had been his indignation, however, the joy of again meeting his child after the long separation blotted out all his anger, and after embracing her tenderly, he placed her by his side at the table. It was only when he came to take leave, and realised that she really belonged to another that his ire broke forth again. At this point the Duchessa put in a word. She highly extolled the excellent qualities of her butler, and declared he had been so skilful in the administration of her affairs, that he deserved to have a kingdom committed to him. In short, she softened the king’s heart so completely that she brought him to own that, as he had now grown very old and feeble, he could not do better than recognise him for his son-in-law, and associate him with himself in the government.
And so he did,5and they all lived happily.
1‘Palazzo.’↑2‘Credenziere,’ confidential servant.↑3‘Aia,’ upper nurse, nursery governess.↑4‘Combinazione.’↑5‘E così fece’ (and thus he did) is another of the expressions in universal use in Rome in tale-telling, forming a sort of refrain.↑
1‘Palazzo.’↑
2‘Credenziere,’ confidential servant.↑
3‘Aia,’ upper nurse, nursery governess.↑
4‘Combinazione.’↑
5‘E così fece’ (and thus he did) is another of the expressions in universal use in Rome in tale-telling, forming a sort of refrain.↑
THE HAPPY COUPLE.1I can tell you a story,2or two perhaps. What a number I used to know, to be sure! But what can I do? It is thirty years and more since anyone has asked me for them, and it’s hard to put one’s ideas together after such a time. Youmustn’tmind if I put the wrong part of the story before, and have to go backwards and forwards a little.I know there was one that ran thus:—There was a married couple who lived so happy and content and fond of each other, that they never had a word of dispute about anything the live-long day, but only thought of helping and pleasing each other.The Devil saw this, and determined to set them by the ears; but how was he to do it? Such love and peace reigned in their home, that he couldn’t find any way into the place. After prowling and prowling about, and finding no means of entrance, what does he do? He went to an old woman,—she must have been one of those who dabble with things they have no business to touch,—and said to her:‘You must do this job for me!’‘That’s no great matter,’ answered the old hag.3‘Give me ten scudi for my niece and a new pair of shoes for me, and I’ll settle the matter.’‘Here are the ten scudi,’ said the Devil; ‘it will be time enough to talk about the shoes when we see how you do the business.’The bad old woman set off accordingly with her niece and the ten scudi, instructing her by the way what she was to do.This husband and wife lived in a place where there was a house on one side and a shop on the other, so that through a window in the house where they lived they could give an eye to anything that went on in the shop.Choosing a moment when the man was alone in the shop, she sent the girl in with the ten scudi; and the girl, who had been told what to do, selected a dress, and a handkerchief, and a number of fine things, and paid her ten scudi. Then she proceeded leisurely to put them on, and to walk up and down the shop in them. Meantime the bad old woman went up to the wife:—‘Poor woman!’ she said. ‘Poor woman! Such a good woman as you are, and to have such a hypocrite of a husband!’‘My husband a hypocrite!’ answered the wife. ‘What can you mean—he is the best man that ever was.’‘Ah! he makes you think so, poor simple soul. But the truth is, he is very different from what you think.’So they went on conversing, and the bad old woman all the time watching what was going on in the shop till the right moment came. Just as the girl was flaunting about and showing herself off, she said:‘Look here, he has given all those things to that girl there.’And though the wife did not believe a word, curiosity prompted her to look, and there she saw the girl bowing herself out with as many thanks and adieus as if the poor man had really given her the things she had bought.‘Perhaps you will believe that!’ observed the bad old woman.‘Indeed, I cannot help believing it,’ answered the wife, ‘but never otherwise should I have thought it; and I owe you a great deal for opening my eyes;’ and she gave her a whole cheese.4‘I know what I shall do,’ she continued, as she sobbed over her lost peace of mind; ‘I shall show him I know his bad conduct by having no dinner ready for him when he comes up by-and-by.’‘That’s right,’ said the bad old woman. ‘Do so, and show him you are not going to be trampled on for thesake of a drab of a girl like that;’ and she tied her cheese up in a handkerchief, and went her way.Down she went now to the husband, and plied him with suspicions of his wife, similar to those she had suggested to her against him. The husband was even less willing to listen to her than the wife had been, and when at last he drove her away, she said:‘You think she’s busy all the morning preparing your dinner; but instead of that, she’s talking to those you wouldn’t like her to talk with. And you see now if to-day she hasn’t been at this game so long that she has forgotten your dinner altogether.’The husband turned a deaf ear, and continued attending to his shop; but when he went into the house and found no dinner ready, it seemed as if all that the bad old woman had said was come true.He was too sad for words, so they didn’t have much of a quarrel, but there could not but be a coldness after such an extraordinary event as a day without dinner.The husband went back to his shop and mused. The wife sat alone in her room crying; presently the old hag came back to her.‘Well, did you tell him you had found him out?’ she inquired.‘No! I hadn’t courage to do that. And he was so patient about there being no dinner, that I felt quite sorry to have suspected him. Oh, you who have been so clever in pointing out my misery to me, can you not tell me some means of reconciliation?’‘Yes, there is one; but I don’t know if you can manage it.’‘Oh yes; I would doanything!’‘Then you must watch till he is quite sound asleep, and take a sharp razor and cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of his beard, quite close to the skin. If you do that it will all come right again.’‘It seems a very odd remedy,’ said the wife; ‘but if you say it will do, I suppose it will, and thank you kindly for the advice;’ and she gave her another cheese.Then the witch went back to the husband.‘I suppose I was mistaken, and you found your dinner ready after all?’ she said.‘No!’ he replied; ‘you were right about there being no dinner; but I am certain there was some cause for there being none, other than what you say.’‘What other cause should there be?’ exclaimed the old woman.‘That I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But some other cause I am persuaded there must have been.’‘Well, if you are so infatuated, I will give you another token that I am right,’ replied the old woman. ‘You don’t deserve that I should save your life, but I am so goodnatured, I can’t help warning you. To-night, I have reason to know, she intends to murder you. You just give some make-believe snoring, but mind you don’t sleep, whatever you do; and you see if she doesn’t take up one of your razors to stab you in the throat.’The good husband refused to believe a word, and drove her away. Nevertheless, when night came he felt not a little anxious; and if he had tried to sleep ever so much he could not, for he felt so excited. Then curiosity to see if the woman’s words would come true overcame him, and he pretended to snore.He had not been snoring thus long, when the wife took up the razor and came all trembling to the bedside, and lifted up his beard.A cold sweat crept over the poor husband as she approached—not for fear of his life, which he could easily rescue, as he was awake—but because the proof seemed there that the old hag had spoken the truth. However, instead of taking it for granted it was so, and refusing to hear any justification—perhaps killing her on the spot, asshe had hoped and expected,—he calmly seized her arm, and said:‘Tell me, what are you going to do with that razor?’The wife sank on her knees by his side, crying:‘I cannot expect you to believe me, but this is really how it was. An old woman came and told me you were making love to a young girl in the shop, and showed me how she was bowing and scraping to you. I was so vexed, that to show you my anger I got no dinner ready; but afterwards, I felt as if I should like to ask you all about it, to make sure there was no mistake: only after what I had done, I didn’t know how to begin speaking to you again. Then I asked the old woman if she couldn’t tell me some means of bringing things straight again; and she said, if I could cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of your beard, all would come right. But I can’t expect you to believe it.’‘Yes, I do,’ replied the husband. ‘The same old wretch came to me, and wanted me in like manner to believe all manner of evil things of you, but I refused to believe you could do anything wrong. So I had more confidence in you than you had in me. But still we were both very nearly making ourselves very foolish and very unhappy; so we will take a lesson never to doubt each other again.’And after that there never was a word between them any more.When the Devil saw how the old woman had spoilt the affair, he took the pair of shoes he was to have given her, and tied them on to a long cane which he fastened on the top of a mountain, and there they dangled before her eyes, but she could never get at them.[This is just the Siddi Kür story of the mischief-making fox, which I have given as ‘The Perfidious Friend’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ and similar to the first Pantcha Tantra story.]1‘I sposi Felici.’↑2‘Esempio,’ see preface. ‘Esempiuccio,’ a termination of endearment, meaning in this place ‘a nice “esempio”.’↑3‘Vecchiaccia,’ bad old woman.↑4‘Forma di formaggio,’ a whole cheese. ‘Cacio,’ the proper word forcheese, is almost entirely superseded by ‘formaggio,’ which comes from ‘forma,’ the press or mould in which it is made.↑
THE HAPPY COUPLE.1
I can tell you a story,2or two perhaps. What a number I used to know, to be sure! But what can I do? It is thirty years and more since anyone has asked me for them, and it’s hard to put one’s ideas together after such a time. Youmustn’tmind if I put the wrong part of the story before, and have to go backwards and forwards a little.I know there was one that ran thus:—There was a married couple who lived so happy and content and fond of each other, that they never had a word of dispute about anything the live-long day, but only thought of helping and pleasing each other.The Devil saw this, and determined to set them by the ears; but how was he to do it? Such love and peace reigned in their home, that he couldn’t find any way into the place. After prowling and prowling about, and finding no means of entrance, what does he do? He went to an old woman,—she must have been one of those who dabble with things they have no business to touch,—and said to her:‘You must do this job for me!’‘That’s no great matter,’ answered the old hag.3‘Give me ten scudi for my niece and a new pair of shoes for me, and I’ll settle the matter.’‘Here are the ten scudi,’ said the Devil; ‘it will be time enough to talk about the shoes when we see how you do the business.’The bad old woman set off accordingly with her niece and the ten scudi, instructing her by the way what she was to do.This husband and wife lived in a place where there was a house on one side and a shop on the other, so that through a window in the house where they lived they could give an eye to anything that went on in the shop.Choosing a moment when the man was alone in the shop, she sent the girl in with the ten scudi; and the girl, who had been told what to do, selected a dress, and a handkerchief, and a number of fine things, and paid her ten scudi. Then she proceeded leisurely to put them on, and to walk up and down the shop in them. Meantime the bad old woman went up to the wife:—‘Poor woman!’ she said. ‘Poor woman! Such a good woman as you are, and to have such a hypocrite of a husband!’‘My husband a hypocrite!’ answered the wife. ‘What can you mean—he is the best man that ever was.’‘Ah! he makes you think so, poor simple soul. But the truth is, he is very different from what you think.’So they went on conversing, and the bad old woman all the time watching what was going on in the shop till the right moment came. Just as the girl was flaunting about and showing herself off, she said:‘Look here, he has given all those things to that girl there.’And though the wife did not believe a word, curiosity prompted her to look, and there she saw the girl bowing herself out with as many thanks and adieus as if the poor man had really given her the things she had bought.‘Perhaps you will believe that!’ observed the bad old woman.‘Indeed, I cannot help believing it,’ answered the wife, ‘but never otherwise should I have thought it; and I owe you a great deal for opening my eyes;’ and she gave her a whole cheese.4‘I know what I shall do,’ she continued, as she sobbed over her lost peace of mind; ‘I shall show him I know his bad conduct by having no dinner ready for him when he comes up by-and-by.’‘That’s right,’ said the bad old woman. ‘Do so, and show him you are not going to be trampled on for thesake of a drab of a girl like that;’ and she tied her cheese up in a handkerchief, and went her way.Down she went now to the husband, and plied him with suspicions of his wife, similar to those she had suggested to her against him. The husband was even less willing to listen to her than the wife had been, and when at last he drove her away, she said:‘You think she’s busy all the morning preparing your dinner; but instead of that, she’s talking to those you wouldn’t like her to talk with. And you see now if to-day she hasn’t been at this game so long that she has forgotten your dinner altogether.’The husband turned a deaf ear, and continued attending to his shop; but when he went into the house and found no dinner ready, it seemed as if all that the bad old woman had said was come true.He was too sad for words, so they didn’t have much of a quarrel, but there could not but be a coldness after such an extraordinary event as a day without dinner.The husband went back to his shop and mused. The wife sat alone in her room crying; presently the old hag came back to her.‘Well, did you tell him you had found him out?’ she inquired.‘No! I hadn’t courage to do that. And he was so patient about there being no dinner, that I felt quite sorry to have suspected him. Oh, you who have been so clever in pointing out my misery to me, can you not tell me some means of reconciliation?’‘Yes, there is one; but I don’t know if you can manage it.’‘Oh yes; I would doanything!’‘Then you must watch till he is quite sound asleep, and take a sharp razor and cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of his beard, quite close to the skin. If you do that it will all come right again.’‘It seems a very odd remedy,’ said the wife; ‘but if you say it will do, I suppose it will, and thank you kindly for the advice;’ and she gave her another cheese.Then the witch went back to the husband.‘I suppose I was mistaken, and you found your dinner ready after all?’ she said.‘No!’ he replied; ‘you were right about there being no dinner; but I am certain there was some cause for there being none, other than what you say.’‘What other cause should there be?’ exclaimed the old woman.‘That I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But some other cause I am persuaded there must have been.’‘Well, if you are so infatuated, I will give you another token that I am right,’ replied the old woman. ‘You don’t deserve that I should save your life, but I am so goodnatured, I can’t help warning you. To-night, I have reason to know, she intends to murder you. You just give some make-believe snoring, but mind you don’t sleep, whatever you do; and you see if she doesn’t take up one of your razors to stab you in the throat.’The good husband refused to believe a word, and drove her away. Nevertheless, when night came he felt not a little anxious; and if he had tried to sleep ever so much he could not, for he felt so excited. Then curiosity to see if the woman’s words would come true overcame him, and he pretended to snore.He had not been snoring thus long, when the wife took up the razor and came all trembling to the bedside, and lifted up his beard.A cold sweat crept over the poor husband as she approached—not for fear of his life, which he could easily rescue, as he was awake—but because the proof seemed there that the old hag had spoken the truth. However, instead of taking it for granted it was so, and refusing to hear any justification—perhaps killing her on the spot, asshe had hoped and expected,—he calmly seized her arm, and said:‘Tell me, what are you going to do with that razor?’The wife sank on her knees by his side, crying:‘I cannot expect you to believe me, but this is really how it was. An old woman came and told me you were making love to a young girl in the shop, and showed me how she was bowing and scraping to you. I was so vexed, that to show you my anger I got no dinner ready; but afterwards, I felt as if I should like to ask you all about it, to make sure there was no mistake: only after what I had done, I didn’t know how to begin speaking to you again. Then I asked the old woman if she couldn’t tell me some means of bringing things straight again; and she said, if I could cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of your beard, all would come right. But I can’t expect you to believe it.’‘Yes, I do,’ replied the husband. ‘The same old wretch came to me, and wanted me in like manner to believe all manner of evil things of you, but I refused to believe you could do anything wrong. So I had more confidence in you than you had in me. But still we were both very nearly making ourselves very foolish and very unhappy; so we will take a lesson never to doubt each other again.’And after that there never was a word between them any more.When the Devil saw how the old woman had spoilt the affair, he took the pair of shoes he was to have given her, and tied them on to a long cane which he fastened on the top of a mountain, and there they dangled before her eyes, but she could never get at them.[This is just the Siddi Kür story of the mischief-making fox, which I have given as ‘The Perfidious Friend’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ and similar to the first Pantcha Tantra story.]
I can tell you a story,2or two perhaps. What a number I used to know, to be sure! But what can I do? It is thirty years and more since anyone has asked me for them, and it’s hard to put one’s ideas together after such a time. Youmustn’tmind if I put the wrong part of the story before, and have to go backwards and forwards a little.
I know there was one that ran thus:—
There was a married couple who lived so happy and content and fond of each other, that they never had a word of dispute about anything the live-long day, but only thought of helping and pleasing each other.
The Devil saw this, and determined to set them by the ears; but how was he to do it? Such love and peace reigned in their home, that he couldn’t find any way into the place. After prowling and prowling about, and finding no means of entrance, what does he do? He went to an old woman,—she must have been one of those who dabble with things they have no business to touch,—and said to her:
‘You must do this job for me!’
‘That’s no great matter,’ answered the old hag.3‘Give me ten scudi for my niece and a new pair of shoes for me, and I’ll settle the matter.’
‘Here are the ten scudi,’ said the Devil; ‘it will be time enough to talk about the shoes when we see how you do the business.’
The bad old woman set off accordingly with her niece and the ten scudi, instructing her by the way what she was to do.
This husband and wife lived in a place where there was a house on one side and a shop on the other, so that through a window in the house where they lived they could give an eye to anything that went on in the shop.
Choosing a moment when the man was alone in the shop, she sent the girl in with the ten scudi; and the girl, who had been told what to do, selected a dress, and a handkerchief, and a number of fine things, and paid her ten scudi. Then she proceeded leisurely to put them on, and to walk up and down the shop in them. Meantime the bad old woman went up to the wife:—
‘Poor woman!’ she said. ‘Poor woman! Such a good woman as you are, and to have such a hypocrite of a husband!’
‘My husband a hypocrite!’ answered the wife. ‘What can you mean—he is the best man that ever was.’
‘Ah! he makes you think so, poor simple soul. But the truth is, he is very different from what you think.’
So they went on conversing, and the bad old woman all the time watching what was going on in the shop till the right moment came. Just as the girl was flaunting about and showing herself off, she said:
‘Look here, he has given all those things to that girl there.’
And though the wife did not believe a word, curiosity prompted her to look, and there she saw the girl bowing herself out with as many thanks and adieus as if the poor man had really given her the things she had bought.
‘Perhaps you will believe that!’ observed the bad old woman.
‘Indeed, I cannot help believing it,’ answered the wife, ‘but never otherwise should I have thought it; and I owe you a great deal for opening my eyes;’ and she gave her a whole cheese.4‘I know what I shall do,’ she continued, as she sobbed over her lost peace of mind; ‘I shall show him I know his bad conduct by having no dinner ready for him when he comes up by-and-by.’
‘That’s right,’ said the bad old woman. ‘Do so, and show him you are not going to be trampled on for thesake of a drab of a girl like that;’ and she tied her cheese up in a handkerchief, and went her way.
Down she went now to the husband, and plied him with suspicions of his wife, similar to those she had suggested to her against him. The husband was even less willing to listen to her than the wife had been, and when at last he drove her away, she said:
‘You think she’s busy all the morning preparing your dinner; but instead of that, she’s talking to those you wouldn’t like her to talk with. And you see now if to-day she hasn’t been at this game so long that she has forgotten your dinner altogether.’
The husband turned a deaf ear, and continued attending to his shop; but when he went into the house and found no dinner ready, it seemed as if all that the bad old woman had said was come true.
He was too sad for words, so they didn’t have much of a quarrel, but there could not but be a coldness after such an extraordinary event as a day without dinner.
The husband went back to his shop and mused. The wife sat alone in her room crying; presently the old hag came back to her.
‘Well, did you tell him you had found him out?’ she inquired.
‘No! I hadn’t courage to do that. And he was so patient about there being no dinner, that I felt quite sorry to have suspected him. Oh, you who have been so clever in pointing out my misery to me, can you not tell me some means of reconciliation?’
‘Yes, there is one; but I don’t know if you can manage it.’
‘Oh yes; I would doanything!’
‘Then you must watch till he is quite sound asleep, and take a sharp razor and cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of his beard, quite close to the skin. If you do that it will all come right again.’
‘It seems a very odd remedy,’ said the wife; ‘but if you say it will do, I suppose it will, and thank you kindly for the advice;’ and she gave her another cheese.
Then the witch went back to the husband.
‘I suppose I was mistaken, and you found your dinner ready after all?’ she said.
‘No!’ he replied; ‘you were right about there being no dinner; but I am certain there was some cause for there being none, other than what you say.’
‘What other cause should there be?’ exclaimed the old woman.
‘That I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But some other cause I am persuaded there must have been.’
‘Well, if you are so infatuated, I will give you another token that I am right,’ replied the old woman. ‘You don’t deserve that I should save your life, but I am so goodnatured, I can’t help warning you. To-night, I have reason to know, she intends to murder you. You just give some make-believe snoring, but mind you don’t sleep, whatever you do; and you see if she doesn’t take up one of your razors to stab you in the throat.’
The good husband refused to believe a word, and drove her away. Nevertheless, when night came he felt not a little anxious; and if he had tried to sleep ever so much he could not, for he felt so excited. Then curiosity to see if the woman’s words would come true overcame him, and he pretended to snore.
He had not been snoring thus long, when the wife took up the razor and came all trembling to the bedside, and lifted up his beard.
A cold sweat crept over the poor husband as she approached—not for fear of his life, which he could easily rescue, as he was awake—but because the proof seemed there that the old hag had spoken the truth. However, instead of taking it for granted it was so, and refusing to hear any justification—perhaps killing her on the spot, asshe had hoped and expected,—he calmly seized her arm, and said:
‘Tell me, what are you going to do with that razor?’
The wife sank on her knees by his side, crying:
‘I cannot expect you to believe me, but this is really how it was. An old woman came and told me you were making love to a young girl in the shop, and showed me how she was bowing and scraping to you. I was so vexed, that to show you my anger I got no dinner ready; but afterwards, I felt as if I should like to ask you all about it, to make sure there was no mistake: only after what I had done, I didn’t know how to begin speaking to you again. Then I asked the old woman if she couldn’t tell me some means of bringing things straight again; and she said, if I could cut off three hairs from the undergrowth of your beard, all would come right. But I can’t expect you to believe it.’
‘Yes, I do,’ replied the husband. ‘The same old wretch came to me, and wanted me in like manner to believe all manner of evil things of you, but I refused to believe you could do anything wrong. So I had more confidence in you than you had in me. But still we were both very nearly making ourselves very foolish and very unhappy; so we will take a lesson never to doubt each other again.’
And after that there never was a word between them any more.
When the Devil saw how the old woman had spoilt the affair, he took the pair of shoes he was to have given her, and tied them on to a long cane which he fastened on the top of a mountain, and there they dangled before her eyes, but she could never get at them.
[This is just the Siddi Kür story of the mischief-making fox, which I have given as ‘The Perfidious Friend’ in ‘Sagas from the Far East,’ and similar to the first Pantcha Tantra story.]
1‘I sposi Felici.’↑2‘Esempio,’ see preface. ‘Esempiuccio,’ a termination of endearment, meaning in this place ‘a nice “esempio”.’↑3‘Vecchiaccia,’ bad old woman.↑4‘Forma di formaggio,’ a whole cheese. ‘Cacio,’ the proper word forcheese, is almost entirely superseded by ‘formaggio,’ which comes from ‘forma,’ the press or mould in which it is made.↑
1‘I sposi Felici.’↑
2‘Esempio,’ see preface. ‘Esempiuccio,’ a termination of endearment, meaning in this place ‘a nice “esempio”.’↑
3‘Vecchiaccia,’ bad old woman.↑
4‘Forma di formaggio,’ a whole cheese. ‘Cacio,’ the proper word forcheese, is almost entirely superseded by ‘formaggio,’ which comes from ‘forma,’ the press or mould in which it is made.↑
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ROOM OF A HOTEL.1They say there was a countess who was very fond of her husband, and her husband was very fond of her; and they vowed nothing should ever make the one think ill of the other.One day the brother of the countess, who had been long away at the wars, and whom the count had never seen, came back to see her just while the count was out.‘Now we’ll have some fun,’ said the countess. ‘We’ll watch till my husband is coming home, and then as he comes into the room you just be kissing me; he will be so astonished to see a stranger kissing me, he will not know what to make of it. Then in five minutes we will tell him who you really are, and it will make a good laugh.’The brother thought it would be a good joke, and they did as she had said.It happened, however, that by accident2the count did not that day as usual come into his wife’s room, but passing along the terrace in front of it, he saw, as she had arranged, one who was a stranger to him kissing her.Then he went into his room, and calling his confidential servant3he told him what had happened, and adding, ‘You will never see me any more,’ went his way.The countess waited on and on for her husband to come in, full of impatience to have her joke out. But when she found he did not come at all, she went into hisroom to seek him there. There she found the servant, who told her what the Count had said, and the desperate resolution he had taken.‘What have I done!’ exclaimed the terrified Countess. ‘Is it possible that I am to be punished thus for a harmless joke!’Then, without saying anything to anyone she wrapped her travelling cloak about her, and set out to seek her husband.The Count had walked on till he could walk no farther, and then he had gone into an inn, where he hired a room for a week; but he went wandering about the woods in misery and despair, and only came in at an hour of night.4The Countess also walked on till she could walk no farther, and thus she came to the same inn; but as she had only a woman’s strength the same journey took her a much longer time, and it was the afternoon of the next day when she arrived. She too asked for a room, but the host assured her with many expressions of regret, that he had not a single room vacant. The Countess pleaded her weariness; the man reiterated his inability to serve her.‘Give me only a room to rest a little while in,’ she begged; ‘just a couple of hours, and then I will start again and journey farther.’Really compassionating her in her fatigue, the man now said:‘If you will be satisfied with that much, I can give you a room for a couple of hours; but no more.’She was fain to be satisfied with that, as she could get no more, and the host showed her into her husband’s room, which he would not want till ‘an hour of night.’By accident, however, the Count came in that night an hour earlier, and very much surprised he was to find a lady in his room. The Countess, equally surprised to see a stranger enter, pulled her veil over her face, so that they did not recognise each other.‘I am sorry to disturb you, madam, but this room, I must inform you, I have engaged,’ said the count; but sorrow had so altered his voice that the countess did not know it again.‘I hope you will spare me,’ replied the Countess. ‘They gave me this room to rest in for two hours, and I have come so long a way that I really need the rest.’‘I can hardly believe that a lady of gentle condition can have come a very long way, all alone and on foot, for there is no carriage in the yard; so I can only consider this a frivolous pretext,’ replied the Count, for sorrow had embittered him.‘Indeed it is too true though,’ continued the Countess. ‘I came all the way from such a place (and she named his own town) without stopping for one moment’s rest.’‘Indeed!’ said the Count, his interest roused at the mention of his own town; ‘and pray what need had you to use such haste to get away from that good town?’‘I had no need to haste to leave the place,’ replied the Countess, hurt at the implied suspicion that she was running away for shame. ‘I hasted to arrive at another place.’‘And that other place was ——?’ persisted the Count, who felt that her intrusion on his privacy gave him a right to cross-question her.The Countess was puzzled how to reply. She had no idea what place she was making for.‘ThatI don’t know,’ she said at last, with no little embarrassment.‘You will permit me to say that you seem to have no adequate reason to allege for this unwarrantable occupation of my room; and what little you tell me certainly in no way inclines me to take a favourable view of the affair.’The Countess was once more stung by the manner in which he seemed to view her journey, and feeling bound to clear herself, she replied:‘If you only knew what my journey is about, you would not speak so!’ and she burst into a flood of tears.Softened by her distress, the Count said in a kinder tone:‘Had you been pleased to confide that to me at first, maybe I had not spoken so; but till you tell me what it is, what opinion can I form?’‘This is it,’ answered the Countess, still sobbing. ‘Yesterday I was the happiest woman on the face of the earth, living in love and confidence with the best husband with whom woman was ever blessed. So strong was my confidence that I hesitated not to trifle with this great happiness. My brother came home from the wars, a stranger to my husband. “Let him see you kiss me,” I said, “it will seem so strange that we will make him laugh heartily afterwards.” He saw him kiss me, but waited for no explanation. He went away without a word, as indeed (fool that I was) I well deserved, and I journey on till I overtake him.’The Count had risen to his feet, and had torn the veil from her face.‘It can be no other but my own!’ he exclaimed, in a voice from which sorrow being banished his own tones sounded forth, and clasped her in his arms.1‘Una Camera di Locanda.’↑2‘Combinazione.’↑3‘Credenziere.’↑4‘Un ora di notte’; an hour after the evening ‘Ave.’↑
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE ROOM OF A HOTEL.1
They say there was a countess who was very fond of her husband, and her husband was very fond of her; and they vowed nothing should ever make the one think ill of the other.One day the brother of the countess, who had been long away at the wars, and whom the count had never seen, came back to see her just while the count was out.‘Now we’ll have some fun,’ said the countess. ‘We’ll watch till my husband is coming home, and then as he comes into the room you just be kissing me; he will be so astonished to see a stranger kissing me, he will not know what to make of it. Then in five minutes we will tell him who you really are, and it will make a good laugh.’The brother thought it would be a good joke, and they did as she had said.It happened, however, that by accident2the count did not that day as usual come into his wife’s room, but passing along the terrace in front of it, he saw, as she had arranged, one who was a stranger to him kissing her.Then he went into his room, and calling his confidential servant3he told him what had happened, and adding, ‘You will never see me any more,’ went his way.The countess waited on and on for her husband to come in, full of impatience to have her joke out. But when she found he did not come at all, she went into hisroom to seek him there. There she found the servant, who told her what the Count had said, and the desperate resolution he had taken.‘What have I done!’ exclaimed the terrified Countess. ‘Is it possible that I am to be punished thus for a harmless joke!’Then, without saying anything to anyone she wrapped her travelling cloak about her, and set out to seek her husband.The Count had walked on till he could walk no farther, and then he had gone into an inn, where he hired a room for a week; but he went wandering about the woods in misery and despair, and only came in at an hour of night.4The Countess also walked on till she could walk no farther, and thus she came to the same inn; but as she had only a woman’s strength the same journey took her a much longer time, and it was the afternoon of the next day when she arrived. She too asked for a room, but the host assured her with many expressions of regret, that he had not a single room vacant. The Countess pleaded her weariness; the man reiterated his inability to serve her.‘Give me only a room to rest a little while in,’ she begged; ‘just a couple of hours, and then I will start again and journey farther.’Really compassionating her in her fatigue, the man now said:‘If you will be satisfied with that much, I can give you a room for a couple of hours; but no more.’She was fain to be satisfied with that, as she could get no more, and the host showed her into her husband’s room, which he would not want till ‘an hour of night.’By accident, however, the Count came in that night an hour earlier, and very much surprised he was to find a lady in his room. The Countess, equally surprised to see a stranger enter, pulled her veil over her face, so that they did not recognise each other.‘I am sorry to disturb you, madam, but this room, I must inform you, I have engaged,’ said the count; but sorrow had so altered his voice that the countess did not know it again.‘I hope you will spare me,’ replied the Countess. ‘They gave me this room to rest in for two hours, and I have come so long a way that I really need the rest.’‘I can hardly believe that a lady of gentle condition can have come a very long way, all alone and on foot, for there is no carriage in the yard; so I can only consider this a frivolous pretext,’ replied the Count, for sorrow had embittered him.‘Indeed it is too true though,’ continued the Countess. ‘I came all the way from such a place (and she named his own town) without stopping for one moment’s rest.’‘Indeed!’ said the Count, his interest roused at the mention of his own town; ‘and pray what need had you to use such haste to get away from that good town?’‘I had no need to haste to leave the place,’ replied the Countess, hurt at the implied suspicion that she was running away for shame. ‘I hasted to arrive at another place.’‘And that other place was ——?’ persisted the Count, who felt that her intrusion on his privacy gave him a right to cross-question her.The Countess was puzzled how to reply. She had no idea what place she was making for.‘ThatI don’t know,’ she said at last, with no little embarrassment.‘You will permit me to say that you seem to have no adequate reason to allege for this unwarrantable occupation of my room; and what little you tell me certainly in no way inclines me to take a favourable view of the affair.’The Countess was once more stung by the manner in which he seemed to view her journey, and feeling bound to clear herself, she replied:‘If you only knew what my journey is about, you would not speak so!’ and she burst into a flood of tears.Softened by her distress, the Count said in a kinder tone:‘Had you been pleased to confide that to me at first, maybe I had not spoken so; but till you tell me what it is, what opinion can I form?’‘This is it,’ answered the Countess, still sobbing. ‘Yesterday I was the happiest woman on the face of the earth, living in love and confidence with the best husband with whom woman was ever blessed. So strong was my confidence that I hesitated not to trifle with this great happiness. My brother came home from the wars, a stranger to my husband. “Let him see you kiss me,” I said, “it will seem so strange that we will make him laugh heartily afterwards.” He saw him kiss me, but waited for no explanation. He went away without a word, as indeed (fool that I was) I well deserved, and I journey on till I overtake him.’The Count had risen to his feet, and had torn the veil from her face.‘It can be no other but my own!’ he exclaimed, in a voice from which sorrow being banished his own tones sounded forth, and clasped her in his arms.
They say there was a countess who was very fond of her husband, and her husband was very fond of her; and they vowed nothing should ever make the one think ill of the other.
One day the brother of the countess, who had been long away at the wars, and whom the count had never seen, came back to see her just while the count was out.
‘Now we’ll have some fun,’ said the countess. ‘We’ll watch till my husband is coming home, and then as he comes into the room you just be kissing me; he will be so astonished to see a stranger kissing me, he will not know what to make of it. Then in five minutes we will tell him who you really are, and it will make a good laugh.’
The brother thought it would be a good joke, and they did as she had said.
It happened, however, that by accident2the count did not that day as usual come into his wife’s room, but passing along the terrace in front of it, he saw, as she had arranged, one who was a stranger to him kissing her.
Then he went into his room, and calling his confidential servant3he told him what had happened, and adding, ‘You will never see me any more,’ went his way.
The countess waited on and on for her husband to come in, full of impatience to have her joke out. But when she found he did not come at all, she went into hisroom to seek him there. There she found the servant, who told her what the Count had said, and the desperate resolution he had taken.
‘What have I done!’ exclaimed the terrified Countess. ‘Is it possible that I am to be punished thus for a harmless joke!’
Then, without saying anything to anyone she wrapped her travelling cloak about her, and set out to seek her husband.
The Count had walked on till he could walk no farther, and then he had gone into an inn, where he hired a room for a week; but he went wandering about the woods in misery and despair, and only came in at an hour of night.4
The Countess also walked on till she could walk no farther, and thus she came to the same inn; but as she had only a woman’s strength the same journey took her a much longer time, and it was the afternoon of the next day when she arrived. She too asked for a room, but the host assured her with many expressions of regret, that he had not a single room vacant. The Countess pleaded her weariness; the man reiterated his inability to serve her.
‘Give me only a room to rest a little while in,’ she begged; ‘just a couple of hours, and then I will start again and journey farther.’
Really compassionating her in her fatigue, the man now said:
‘If you will be satisfied with that much, I can give you a room for a couple of hours; but no more.’
She was fain to be satisfied with that, as she could get no more, and the host showed her into her husband’s room, which he would not want till ‘an hour of night.’
By accident, however, the Count came in that night an hour earlier, and very much surprised he was to find a lady in his room. The Countess, equally surprised to see a stranger enter, pulled her veil over her face, so that they did not recognise each other.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, madam, but this room, I must inform you, I have engaged,’ said the count; but sorrow had so altered his voice that the countess did not know it again.
‘I hope you will spare me,’ replied the Countess. ‘They gave me this room to rest in for two hours, and I have come so long a way that I really need the rest.’
‘I can hardly believe that a lady of gentle condition can have come a very long way, all alone and on foot, for there is no carriage in the yard; so I can only consider this a frivolous pretext,’ replied the Count, for sorrow had embittered him.
‘Indeed it is too true though,’ continued the Countess. ‘I came all the way from such a place (and she named his own town) without stopping for one moment’s rest.’
‘Indeed!’ said the Count, his interest roused at the mention of his own town; ‘and pray what need had you to use such haste to get away from that good town?’
‘I had no need to haste to leave the place,’ replied the Countess, hurt at the implied suspicion that she was running away for shame. ‘I hasted to arrive at another place.’
‘And that other place was ——?’ persisted the Count, who felt that her intrusion on his privacy gave him a right to cross-question her.
The Countess was puzzled how to reply. She had no idea what place she was making for.
‘ThatI don’t know,’ she said at last, with no little embarrassment.
‘You will permit me to say that you seem to have no adequate reason to allege for this unwarrantable occupation of my room; and what little you tell me certainly in no way inclines me to take a favourable view of the affair.’
The Countess was once more stung by the manner in which he seemed to view her journey, and feeling bound to clear herself, she replied:
‘If you only knew what my journey is about, you would not speak so!’ and she burst into a flood of tears.
Softened by her distress, the Count said in a kinder tone:
‘Had you been pleased to confide that to me at first, maybe I had not spoken so; but till you tell me what it is, what opinion can I form?’
‘This is it,’ answered the Countess, still sobbing. ‘Yesterday I was the happiest woman on the face of the earth, living in love and confidence with the best husband with whom woman was ever blessed. So strong was my confidence that I hesitated not to trifle with this great happiness. My brother came home from the wars, a stranger to my husband. “Let him see you kiss me,” I said, “it will seem so strange that we will make him laugh heartily afterwards.” He saw him kiss me, but waited for no explanation. He went away without a word, as indeed (fool that I was) I well deserved, and I journey on till I overtake him.’
The Count had risen to his feet, and had torn the veil from her face.
‘It can be no other but my own!’ he exclaimed, in a voice from which sorrow being banished his own tones sounded forth, and clasped her in his arms.
1‘Una Camera di Locanda.’↑2‘Combinazione.’↑3‘Credenziere.’↑4‘Un ora di notte’; an hour after the evening ‘Ave.’↑
1‘Una Camera di Locanda.’↑
2‘Combinazione.’↑
3‘Credenziere.’↑
4‘Un ora di notte’; an hour after the evening ‘Ave.’↑
THE COUNTESS’S CAT.1There was a very rich Countess who was a widow and lived all alone, with no companion but only a cat, after her husband died. The greatest care was taken of this cat, and every day a chicken was boiled on purpose for him.One day the Countessa went out to spend the day at afriend’s villa in the Campagna, and she said to the waiting woman:‘Mind the cat has his chicken just the same as if I were at home.’‘Yes! Signora Countessa, leave that to me,’ answered the woman; but the Countess was no sooner gone out than she said to the man-servant:‘The cat has the chicken every day; suppose we have it to-day?’The man said, ‘To be sure!’ and they ate the chicken themselves, giving the cat only the inside; but they threw the bones down in the usual corner, to make it appear as if he had eaten the whole chicken.The cat said nothing, but looked on with great eyes, full of meaning.2When the Countess came back that evening the cat, instead of going out to meet her as he always did, remained still in his place and said nothing.‘What’s the matter with the cat? Hasn’t he had his chicken?’ asked the Countess, immediately.‘Yes! Signora Countessa,’ answered the cameriera. ‘See, there are the bones on the floor, where he always leaves them.’The Countessa could not deny the testimony of her eyes, so she said nothing more but went up to bed.The cat followed her as he always did, for he slept on her bed; but he followed at a distance, without purring or rubbing himself against her. The Countess saw something was wrong, but she didn’t know what to make of it, and went to bed as usual.That night the cat throttled3the Countess, and killed her.The cat is very intelligent in his own interest, but he is a traitor.‘It would have been more intelligent,’ I observed, ‘if he had throttled the waiting woman in this instance.’Not at all; the cat’s reasoning was this:—If thou hadst not gone out and left me to the mercy of menials, this had not happened; therefore it was thou who hadst to die.This is quite true, for cats are always traitors. Dogs are faithful, cats are traitors.4[Perhaps this tale would have been hardly worth printing, but that the selfsame story was told me as a positive fact by an Irishman, who could not have come across the Italian story. In the Irish version it was its master the cat killed; in the wording of the narrator he ‘cut his throat.’]1‘Il Gatto della Contessa.’↑2‘Il gatto non dissi niente, ma guardava con certi occhi grossi, grossi, fissi.’↑3‘Strozzato,’ throttled; killed by wounding thestrozzo, throat.↑4‘E questo è un fatto vero, sa; perchè il gatto è traditore sempre. Il cane e fedele si, ma il gatto è traditore.’↑
THE COUNTESS’S CAT.1
There was a very rich Countess who was a widow and lived all alone, with no companion but only a cat, after her husband died. The greatest care was taken of this cat, and every day a chicken was boiled on purpose for him.One day the Countessa went out to spend the day at afriend’s villa in the Campagna, and she said to the waiting woman:‘Mind the cat has his chicken just the same as if I were at home.’‘Yes! Signora Countessa, leave that to me,’ answered the woman; but the Countess was no sooner gone out than she said to the man-servant:‘The cat has the chicken every day; suppose we have it to-day?’The man said, ‘To be sure!’ and they ate the chicken themselves, giving the cat only the inside; but they threw the bones down in the usual corner, to make it appear as if he had eaten the whole chicken.The cat said nothing, but looked on with great eyes, full of meaning.2When the Countess came back that evening the cat, instead of going out to meet her as he always did, remained still in his place and said nothing.‘What’s the matter with the cat? Hasn’t he had his chicken?’ asked the Countess, immediately.‘Yes! Signora Countessa,’ answered the cameriera. ‘See, there are the bones on the floor, where he always leaves them.’The Countessa could not deny the testimony of her eyes, so she said nothing more but went up to bed.The cat followed her as he always did, for he slept on her bed; but he followed at a distance, without purring or rubbing himself against her. The Countess saw something was wrong, but she didn’t know what to make of it, and went to bed as usual.That night the cat throttled3the Countess, and killed her.The cat is very intelligent in his own interest, but he is a traitor.‘It would have been more intelligent,’ I observed, ‘if he had throttled the waiting woman in this instance.’Not at all; the cat’s reasoning was this:—If thou hadst not gone out and left me to the mercy of menials, this had not happened; therefore it was thou who hadst to die.This is quite true, for cats are always traitors. Dogs are faithful, cats are traitors.4[Perhaps this tale would have been hardly worth printing, but that the selfsame story was told me as a positive fact by an Irishman, who could not have come across the Italian story. In the Irish version it was its master the cat killed; in the wording of the narrator he ‘cut his throat.’]
There was a very rich Countess who was a widow and lived all alone, with no companion but only a cat, after her husband died. The greatest care was taken of this cat, and every day a chicken was boiled on purpose for him.
One day the Countessa went out to spend the day at afriend’s villa in the Campagna, and she said to the waiting woman:
‘Mind the cat has his chicken just the same as if I were at home.’
‘Yes! Signora Countessa, leave that to me,’ answered the woman; but the Countess was no sooner gone out than she said to the man-servant:
‘The cat has the chicken every day; suppose we have it to-day?’
The man said, ‘To be sure!’ and they ate the chicken themselves, giving the cat only the inside; but they threw the bones down in the usual corner, to make it appear as if he had eaten the whole chicken.
The cat said nothing, but looked on with great eyes, full of meaning.2
When the Countess came back that evening the cat, instead of going out to meet her as he always did, remained still in his place and said nothing.
‘What’s the matter with the cat? Hasn’t he had his chicken?’ asked the Countess, immediately.
‘Yes! Signora Countessa,’ answered the cameriera. ‘See, there are the bones on the floor, where he always leaves them.’
The Countessa could not deny the testimony of her eyes, so she said nothing more but went up to bed.
The cat followed her as he always did, for he slept on her bed; but he followed at a distance, without purring or rubbing himself against her. The Countess saw something was wrong, but she didn’t know what to make of it, and went to bed as usual.
That night the cat throttled3the Countess, and killed her.
The cat is very intelligent in his own interest, but he is a traitor.
‘It would have been more intelligent,’ I observed, ‘if he had throttled the waiting woman in this instance.’
Not at all; the cat’s reasoning was this:—If thou hadst not gone out and left me to the mercy of menials, this had not happened; therefore it was thou who hadst to die.
This is quite true, for cats are always traitors. Dogs are faithful, cats are traitors.4
[Perhaps this tale would have been hardly worth printing, but that the selfsame story was told me as a positive fact by an Irishman, who could not have come across the Italian story. In the Irish version it was its master the cat killed; in the wording of the narrator he ‘cut his throat.’]
1‘Il Gatto della Contessa.’↑2‘Il gatto non dissi niente, ma guardava con certi occhi grossi, grossi, fissi.’↑3‘Strozzato,’ throttled; killed by wounding thestrozzo, throat.↑4‘E questo è un fatto vero, sa; perchè il gatto è traditore sempre. Il cane e fedele si, ma il gatto è traditore.’↑
1‘Il Gatto della Contessa.’↑
2‘Il gatto non dissi niente, ma guardava con certi occhi grossi, grossi, fissi.’↑
3‘Strozzato,’ throttled; killed by wounding thestrozzo, throat.↑
4‘E questo è un fatto vero, sa; perchè il gatto è traditore sempre. Il cane e fedele si, ma il gatto è traditore.’↑
WHY CATS AND DOGS ALWAYS QUARREL.1‘Why do dogs and cats always fight, papa?’ we used to say.And he used to answer, ‘I’ll tell you why;’ and we all stood round listening.‘Once on a time dogs and cats were very good friends, and when the dogs went out of town they left their cards on the cats, and when the cats went out of town they left their cards on the dogs.’And we all sat round and listened and laughed.‘Once the dogs all went out of town and left their cards as usual on the cats; but they were a long time gone, for they were gone on a rat-hunt, and killed all the rats. When the cats heard that the dogs had taken to killing rats, they were furious against the dogs, and lay in wait for them and set upon them.‘“Set upon the dogs! at them! give it them!”’2shouted the cats, as they flew at them; and from that time to this, dogs and cats never meet without fighting.And we all stood round and laughed fit to split our sides.[Scheible, Schaltjahr I., 375, gives a more humorous version of this.]1‘Perchè litigano sempre i Cani ed i Gatti.’↑2‘Dàlli! Dàlli ai cani!’↑
WHY CATS AND DOGS ALWAYS QUARREL.1
‘Why do dogs and cats always fight, papa?’ we used to say.And he used to answer, ‘I’ll tell you why;’ and we all stood round listening.‘Once on a time dogs and cats were very good friends, and when the dogs went out of town they left their cards on the cats, and when the cats went out of town they left their cards on the dogs.’And we all sat round and listened and laughed.‘Once the dogs all went out of town and left their cards as usual on the cats; but they were a long time gone, for they were gone on a rat-hunt, and killed all the rats. When the cats heard that the dogs had taken to killing rats, they were furious against the dogs, and lay in wait for them and set upon them.‘“Set upon the dogs! at them! give it them!”’2shouted the cats, as they flew at them; and from that time to this, dogs and cats never meet without fighting.And we all stood round and laughed fit to split our sides.[Scheible, Schaltjahr I., 375, gives a more humorous version of this.]
‘Why do dogs and cats always fight, papa?’ we used to say.
And he used to answer, ‘I’ll tell you why;’ and we all stood round listening.
‘Once on a time dogs and cats were very good friends, and when the dogs went out of town they left their cards on the cats, and when the cats went out of town they left their cards on the dogs.’
And we all sat round and listened and laughed.
‘Once the dogs all went out of town and left their cards as usual on the cats; but they were a long time gone, for they were gone on a rat-hunt, and killed all the rats. When the cats heard that the dogs had taken to killing rats, they were furious against the dogs, and lay in wait for them and set upon them.
‘“Set upon the dogs! at them! give it them!”’2shouted the cats, as they flew at them; and from that time to this, dogs and cats never meet without fighting.
And we all stood round and laughed fit to split our sides.
[Scheible, Schaltjahr I., 375, gives a more humorous version of this.]
1‘Perchè litigano sempre i Cani ed i Gatti.’↑2‘Dàlli! Dàlli ai cani!’↑
1‘Perchè litigano sempre i Cani ed i Gatti.’↑
2‘Dàlli! Dàlli ai cani!’↑
THE CATS WHO MADE THEIR MASTER RICH.‘Ah! as to cats and mice, listen andI’ll tell you something worth hearing!‘In America, once upon a time, there were no cats. Mice there were in plenty; mice everywhere; not peeping out of holes now and then, but infesting everything, swarming over every room; and when a family sat down to meals, the mice rushed upon the table and disputed the victuals with them.‘Then one thought of a plan; he freighted three ships; full, full of cats, and off to America with them. There he sold them for their weight in gold and more, andwhiff!the mice were swept away, and he made a great fortune. A great fortune, all out of cats!’[In the ‘Russian Folktales’ is also a version of the Whittington story, p. 43.]
THE CATS WHO MADE THEIR MASTER RICH.
‘Ah! as to cats and mice, listen andI’ll tell you something worth hearing!‘In America, once upon a time, there were no cats. Mice there were in plenty; mice everywhere; not peeping out of holes now and then, but infesting everything, swarming over every room; and when a family sat down to meals, the mice rushed upon the table and disputed the victuals with them.‘Then one thought of a plan; he freighted three ships; full, full of cats, and off to America with them. There he sold them for their weight in gold and more, andwhiff!the mice were swept away, and he made a great fortune. A great fortune, all out of cats!’[In the ‘Russian Folktales’ is also a version of the Whittington story, p. 43.]
‘Ah! as to cats and mice, listen andI’ll tell you something worth hearing!
‘In America, once upon a time, there were no cats. Mice there were in plenty; mice everywhere; not peeping out of holes now and then, but infesting everything, swarming over every room; and when a family sat down to meals, the mice rushed upon the table and disputed the victuals with them.
‘Then one thought of a plan; he freighted three ships; full, full of cats, and off to America with them. There he sold them for their weight in gold and more, andwhiff!the mice were swept away, and he made a great fortune. A great fortune, all out of cats!’
[In the ‘Russian Folktales’ is also a version of the Whittington story, p. 43.]