The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse by Hermann Hesse Read Free Book Online Page B

for Cyprus aboardship, he had plenty of money and believed that he would never have to worry about poverty again. But the bloodof an innocent man had tarnished the money, and it caused him one misfortune after another. Indeed, he was robbed of his possessions by storms and pirates and did not reach his homeland until two years later, as a shipwrecked beggar.”
    During the telling of this entire story, the dwarf’s mistress listened with rapt attention. When Filippo finished and was silent, she did not utter a single word and remained deeply absorbed in her thoughts until the gondolier stopped and waited for the command to return home. All at once she jumped, as if startled by a dream, and signaled the gondolier to return. As she drew the curtains together to conceal herself, the rudder altered their course quickly, and the gondola flew like a black bird toward the city. The dwarf still crouched on the floor and looked calmly and seriously over the dark lagoon as if he were already thinking up another new story. Soon they arrived at the city, and the gondola sped home through the Rio Panada and the other small canals.
    That night Margherita had difficulty sleeping. The story about the love potion had given her the idea—just as the dwarf had envisioned—to use the same means to capture the heart of her fiancé completely and secure his love. The next day she began to talk to Filippo about this, but not directly. Rather, she asked him all kinds of questions and was curious about how such a love potion was made, even though the preparation of its secret ingredients was no longer commonly known. She asked him whether the potion contained poisonous and harmful liquids and whether its taste was such that the drinker would suspect something. The clever Filippo answered all these questions with a certain indifference and acted as though he did not notice anything of the secret wishes of his mistress, so that she had to speak even more explicitly about her desires and finallyhad to ask him directly whether there was someone in Venice who was capable of making such a potion.
    Then the dwarf laughed and exclaimed, “You don’t trust my skills very much if you think that I didn’t learn such simple beginning steps of magic from my father, who was such a great wise man.”
    “You can actually make such a love potion?” the lady cried with pleasure.
    “There’s nothing to it,” responded Filippo. “But I don’t understand why you should need my art when all your wishes have been fulfilled and you have one of the most handsome and richest of men as your fiancé.”
    But the beautiful lady continued to insist, so that he eventually proceeded to prepare a potion while pretending to resist. She gave the dwarf money to acquire the necessary herbs and secret ingredients, and she promised him a stately gift later on if everything succeeded.
    After two days he finished his preparations and carried the magic potion in a small glass bottle to the table of his mistress. Since Signore Baldassare was to depart for Cyprus soon, the matter was urgent. So when Baldassare proposed a secret pleasure trip to his bride on one of the following days—nobody took walks, due to the heat, during this time of the year—it seemed to Margherita, as well as to the dwarf, the fitting occasion to test the potion.
    When Baldassare’s gondola arrived at the appointed hour before the gate of the house, Margherita stood ready, and she had Filippo with her. He carried a bottle of wine and a basket of peaches into the boat, and after his mistress and Signore Baldassare climbed in, he proceeded to take his place in the gondola, sitting at the feet of the gondolier. Baldassare was not pleased that Filippo was accompanyingthem, but he restrained himself and said nothing. He thought it better to yield to the wishes of his beloved in these final days before his departure.
    The gondolier pushed off. Baldassare pulled the curtains tightly together and dined with his