that’s nothing, be patient, all will have its turn. Time was for strawberries, time will be for apples. So you want me to tell you your fortune, little poppets?”
Not without disappointment did I hear all this coarse patter, and even the remnants of curiosity left me. But the beldam, still muttering like one drunk, shuffled about with her hands, found an egg and broke the white into the water, which clouded. Peering into the cloudy shapes that wound and unwound in the water, the witch began to foretell us our future, and her words seemed to me but a feeble deception:
“I see a journey here for you, sweet children, but not a far one. Whither you are bound, go thither; there awaits for you the fulfilment of your desires. A stern man threatens to part you, but you are bound one with a leather strap. A warm little bed, a warm little bed awaits you, my pretty ones!”
The old creature went on mumbling for a little and then beckoned us towards her, saying:
“Come nearer, baby fledglings, and I shall give you a little herb, a good herb: only once a year it blooms, just once only, in the night of the eve of the day of St. John.”
Expecting no harm, we approached the witch. But suddenly her mouth twisted in her wrinkled face, her eyes became round like the eyes of a pike and black as two coals. She quickly stretched forward and, clutching at my coat with fingers crooked like an iron hook, no longer muttering, she hissed snake-like:
“My boy, what is this, this that you have upon you? On the coat, you, and you too, my beauty, on the bodice? Blood—where is it from? Such a lot of blood—where does it come from? The whole coat is blood and the whole bodice is blood. And it streams, the blood, oozes and smells.”
And she snuffled with the nostrils of her hooked nose, inhaling the scent, and her whole body trembled either with joy or terror. But I felt uneasy at this hissing and these words, and Renata near me tottered so that she might straightway have fallen. So I tore myself free from the clutches of the ape, overturned the table so that the glasses broke and the water ran, and, catching Renata in one arm, I laid the other hand on the hilt of my sword, shouting:
“Away, witch! Else I pierce your damned body like a fish!”
But the beldam in fury still clutched at us, howling, “Blood! Blood!”
At the noise, the son of the witch ran in and felled his mother from her feet with a blow of his fist, then began to rain on us obscene curses. It appeared as though such happenings were no novelty to him, and as though he knew how to behave when they arose. As for me, I hastily bore Renata out into the fresh air, and, not listening to the questions of those who were waiting their turn, I hurried to the home where we had left our baggage and our horse.
But after this occurrence all the gaiety and talkativeness of Renata was as if mown down by a scythe, and she uttered no word nor did she lift her eyes. When our horse had been girthed and I had helped Renata into the saddle, she drooped like a broken reed and the reins fell from her hands. In her movements and actions she probably resembled exactly the remarkable automaton of Albertus Magnus.
Thus, sadly, we departed from Geerdt and made our way along the road towards the Rhine. To discourage Renata from believing in the prophecies of the witch, I tried to picture to her all that had happened reflected in a comic mirror, relating to her all those cases, even those of which I had only heard, in which predictions had not come true or had been turned to ridicule. I told her how a prophet foretold a near death to the Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and a long life for himself, and was immediately slain by the Duke. Further, I related how Henry the Vllth, father of the present English King, asked an astrologer much given to prediction: was it known to him where he would pass the night? And, when the astrologer replied Nay, said “I can see into the future better than you:
Not without disappointment did I hear all this coarse patter, and even the remnants of curiosity left me. But the beldam, still muttering like one drunk, shuffled about with her hands, found an egg and broke the white into the water, which clouded. Peering into the cloudy shapes that wound and unwound in the water, the witch began to foretell us our future, and her words seemed to me but a feeble deception:
“I see a journey here for you, sweet children, but not a far one. Whither you are bound, go thither; there awaits for you the fulfilment of your desires. A stern man threatens to part you, but you are bound one with a leather strap. A warm little bed, a warm little bed awaits you, my pretty ones!”
The old creature went on mumbling for a little and then beckoned us towards her, saying:
“Come nearer, baby fledglings, and I shall give you a little herb, a good herb: only once a year it blooms, just once only, in the night of the eve of the day of St. John.”
Expecting no harm, we approached the witch. But suddenly her mouth twisted in her wrinkled face, her eyes became round like the eyes of a pike and black as two coals. She quickly stretched forward and, clutching at my coat with fingers crooked like an iron hook, no longer muttering, she hissed snake-like:
“My boy, what is this, this that you have upon you? On the coat, you, and you too, my beauty, on the bodice? Blood—where is it from? Such a lot of blood—where does it come from? The whole coat is blood and the whole bodice is blood. And it streams, the blood, oozes and smells.”
And she snuffled with the nostrils of her hooked nose, inhaling the scent, and her whole body trembled either with joy or terror. But I felt uneasy at this hissing and these words, and Renata near me tottered so that she might straightway have fallen. So I tore myself free from the clutches of the ape, overturned the table so that the glasses broke and the water ran, and, catching Renata in one arm, I laid the other hand on the hilt of my sword, shouting:
“Away, witch! Else I pierce your damned body like a fish!”
But the beldam in fury still clutched at us, howling, “Blood! Blood!”
At the noise, the son of the witch ran in and felled his mother from her feet with a blow of his fist, then began to rain on us obscene curses. It appeared as though such happenings were no novelty to him, and as though he knew how to behave when they arose. As for me, I hastily bore Renata out into the fresh air, and, not listening to the questions of those who were waiting their turn, I hurried to the home where we had left our baggage and our horse.
But after this occurrence all the gaiety and talkativeness of Renata was as if mown down by a scythe, and she uttered no word nor did she lift her eyes. When our horse had been girthed and I had helped Renata into the saddle, she drooped like a broken reed and the reins fell from her hands. In her movements and actions she probably resembled exactly the remarkable automaton of Albertus Magnus.
Thus, sadly, we departed from Geerdt and made our way along the road towards the Rhine. To discourage Renata from believing in the prophecies of the witch, I tried to picture to her all that had happened reflected in a comic mirror, relating to her all those cases, even those of which I had only heard, in which predictions had not come true or had been turned to ridicule. I told her how a prophet foretold a near death to the Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazzo Visconti, and a long life for himself, and was immediately slain by the Duke. Further, I related how Henry the Vllth, father of the present English King, asked an astrologer much given to prediction: was it known to him where he would pass the night? And, when the astrologer replied Nay, said “I can see into the future better than you:
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