Household stories from the Land of Hofer

“What have you been dreaming now?” he exclaimed, in his most fearful voice. “I declare, I can scarcely keep my hands off you!”

“Don’t be angry,” answered Giuseppa; “it is I who have had the worst of it. I dreamt I was passing through a country where the trees had given up bearing fruit; and when the people saw me go by, they all came round me, and said, as I was the Devil’s wife, I must know what ailed their trees; and when I couldn’t tell them, they cut down great branches, and ran after me, poking the sharp, rough points into my sides! You may believe if I tried to run away fast.”

The Devil had never had such a laugh since he had been a devil, as at this story, and the whole palace echoed with his merriment.

When Giuseppa found him once more in such good humour, she went on, —

“And why do you do such mischievous things, and make people so savage? It isn’t fair that they don’t dare to touch you and all their ill-will falls on me.”

“As it happens, it’s not my doing at all this time; at least, I didn’t go out of my way to do it for any sort of fun. It all came about in the regular way of business.”

“What do you mean?” pursued Giuseppa, who knew it was necessary to probe the matter to the bottom.

“Why, the king of that country is a regular miser. He is so afraid that any body should get any thing out of their gardens without paying the due tribute to him first, that he has built such high walls round all the orchards, and vine-gardens, and olive-yards, that no sun can get at them. And he is so stingy, he won’t pay people to dig round them and manure, and prune, and attend to the property; so how can the fruit grow? As long as he defrauds the poor people of their work, he can have no fruit. It’s not my fault at all!

“But, really, I’ve had enough of this. You’d better go and sleep somewhere else for the rest of the night, for I can’t stand being woke up any more. If you do it again, I am sure I shall strangle you – and that would be a pity! Go along, and dream somewhere else – and I hope you may get properly punished before you wake next time!”

Giuseppa desired no command so much; but pretending to cry and be much offended, she got up and went to lie down in another bed till the Devil began to snore soundly again. Then she rose up, and, taking all her fine clothes and jewels, went out softly, and beckoned to Clamer to follow her.

“Suppose the Devil wakes before we get far away?” said Clamer, beginning to get frightened as the time of trial approached.

“Never fear!” answered Giuseppa; “when he gets disturbed like that, he sleeps for a week after it.”

Then she clapped her hands, and a number of great birds came flapping round. She helped Clamer on to the back of one, and, loading her jewels on to another, sprang on to a third, and away they flew, while she beckoned to three more to follow behind.

When they came to the first kingdom, Clamer left the strange cortége behind a mountain, and went alone up to the court, to tell the king he was a miser, and that if he gave up his sordid ways and set the people, who were starving for want of work, to pull down half the height of his walls, and to dig, manure, and prune his trees, he would have as good a crop of fruit as any in the world. Then the king acknowledged his fault, and praised Clamer for pointing it out, and gave him a great bag of gold as his reward.

Clamer packed the sack of gold on to the back of one of the birds which were following them, and away they sped again. When they arrived at the second kingdom, Clamer hid his cortége in a pine forest, and went alone to the court, to tell the king that if his son would give up his bad companions, and live according to the advice of his elders, he would be all well again as before. The prince was very much astonished to find that Clamer knew about his bad behaviour, for he had concealed it from his parents and all about him, but this convinced him that he must be right in what he said, so he promised to alter his life and behave according to the wise counsel of his elders in future. From that moment he began to get better; and the king, in joy at his restoration, gave Clamer a great sack of gold, which he laded on to the back of the second bird; and away they flew again.

When they arrived at the third kingdom, Clamer hid his retinue in the bed of a dried lake and went alone to the court, to tell the king that if he would order the procession to the pilgrimage chapel to be resumed, the Devil would not be able to get in to stop the fountains. The king at once ordered the grandest procession that had ever been known in the memory of the oldest inhabitant, and all the people went out devoutly praying. Immediately the springs and fountains began to flow again; and the king was so pleased that he gave Clamer a great sack of gold, which he packed on to the back of the third bird; and away they flew again, till they reached the gloomy shades of the Val d’Ombretta, under the cold, steep precipices of the Marmolata85.

“Here will be a good place to hide all this treasure,” said Giuseppa; “it will never do to take it into Trient all at once. We will bury it here where foot of man seldom falls, and my birds will keep good watch over it and defend it, and yet by their services we shall be able to fetch down any portion of it as we want it.”

Clamer saw there was some good in the proposal, but he hardly liked giving up the possession of the treasure to Giuseppa’s birds, neither did he like to show any want of confidence.

“Don’t you think it an excellent plan?” asked Giuseppa, as she saw him hesitate.

“I think I could stow it away as safely in an old well at home,” said Clamer. “This is an uncanny place of evil renown, and I had just as lief have nothing to do with it.”

“What’s the matter with the place?” asked Giuseppa.

“Oh, you know, the Marmolata was as fertile as any pasture of Tirol once,” answered Clamer; “and because the people had such fine returns for their labour from it, they grew careless and impious, and were not satisfied with all the week for working in it, but must needs be at it on Sundays and holidays as well. One Sunday an ancient man came by and chid them for their profanity. ‘Go along with your old wives’ stories!’ said a rich proprietor who was directing the labourers; ‘Sunday and working-day is all alike to us. We have sun and rain and a fine soil, what do we want with going to church to pray?’ And they sang, —

’Nos ongh el fengh en te tablà,E i autri sul prà86!’

“The old man lifted up his finger in warning, and passed on his way; but as he went it came on to snow. And it snowed on till it had covered all the ground; covered all the hay up to the top; covered over the heads of the labourers and their masters; snowed so deep that the sun has never been able to melt it away again! A curse is on the place, and I had rather have nothing to do with it.”

“Oh, I’ve lived long enough where curses abound to care very little about them,” answered Giuseppa, “or I could tell you the real story about that, for you’ve only got the wrong end of it. But it doesn’t do to think of those things. The only way is to laugh at all that sort of thing, and make yourself jolly while you can.”

“My story’s the right one,” replied Clamer, “and you won’t laugh me out of believing it.”

“Oh, dear no; the right story is much more serious than that! But I lose my patience with people who trouble themselves about those things.”

“I don’t believe there’s any more of the story,” continued Clamer, who was dying to hear it, and knew that the best way to get at it was by provoking her. Had he merely begged her to tell it, she would have found a perverse pleasure in disappointing him.

Giuseppa was very easily provoked. “The right story proves itself,” she cried, pettishly; and Clamer chuckled aside to see his plan succeed. “Your way of telling it only accounts for the snow; how do you account for the ice?”

“Oh, there’s no way of accounting for that,” replied Clamer, with a malicious laugh.

“Yes, there is,” rejoined Giuseppa, fairly caught. “It wasn’t an old man at all who came to give the warning. It was a very young man, for it was no one else but St. John.”

“St. John!” cried Clamer; “how could that be?”

“Don’t you know any thing, then?” retorted Giuseppa. “Don’t you know that there was a time when our Lord and His Apostles went walking over the earth, preaching the Gospel?”

“Yes, of course I know that,” replied Clamer, much offended.

“Well, then, in process of travelling they came here just the same as every where else – why shouldn’t they? The Apostles had been sent on to prepare a lodging for the night, and St. John, being the youngest and best walker, outstripped the rest, and came by first. But he was so soft and gentle in his warning that the labourers laughed at him, and he went on his way sighing, for he saw that their hearts were hardened.

“Then St. Peter and St. Paul came by – ”

“But St. Paul – ” interposed Clamer.

“Don’t interrupt, but listen,” said Giuseppa. “St. Peter and St. Paul, though not younger than the others like St. John, were always in the front in all matters, because of their eagerness and zeal, and the important post which was assigned them in the Church. They came next, therefore; but they, seeing the men working on Sunday, were filled with indignation, and chid them so fiercely that they only made them angry, and they took up stones to throw at them, and drove them out of the ground. One by one the other Apostles all came by and warned them, but none of them seemed to have the right way of getting at their hearts. And they went on working, with a worse sin on them for having been warned.

“Last of all, the Lord Himself came by, and His heart was moved with compassion by the perversity of the people. He saw that all the preaching of all His Apostles had been in vain, and He resolved to save them in another way, and prove them, to see if there was any charity or any good in them at all.

“Instead of threatening and warning, He came leaning on His staff, weary and way-sore.

“‘You have a fine Berg-Segen87, my friends,’ He said, sweetly, as He sat on a great heap of fresh hay placed ready to load the returning wain.

“‘Oh, yes! first-rate crops,’ replied the rich proprietor, with a look of contempt at the travel-stained garments of the wayfarer; ‘but they’re not meant to serve as beds for idle fellows who go prowling about the country and live by begging instead of by work, so you just get up and take yourself off!’

“Our Lord looked at him with a piteous glance, but his heart was not softened. ‘Move off quicker than that, or you’ll taste my stick!’ he cried, assuming a threatening attitude.

“Our Lord passed on, without uttering a word of complaint, till He reached the holding of the next proprietor.

“‘Where there are such fine pastures there must be fine cattle and a fine store of produce,’ He said.

“‘Oh, yes, I’ve plenty of stores!’ said the man addressed; ‘and that’s just why I don’t like to have loafing vagabonds about my place; so please to move on quicker than you came.’

“‘But I’m weary, my good man, and have come a long journey this day, and have nothing to eat: give me, now, but one sup of milk from your bountiful provision there.’

“‘Give!’ answered the man; ‘I’ve nothing to give away. I work hard for all I gain, and I don’t encourage those who don’t work.’

“‘But you won’t miss the little I ask – and I have travelled very far and am very weary,’ replied our Lord, condescending to speak very piteously, to see if He could not by any means move the man’s heart.

“‘Hola! you there! Domenico, Virgilio, Giacomo, Rocco, Pero! come along here, and throw this fellow out!’ shouted the proprietor.

“The men turned with their pitchforks, and drove the wayfarer rudely away, without pity, notwithstanding that His legs trembled with weariness and the way was so steep.

“Our Lord uttered not a word, and hasted on, that He might not increase their condemnation by resistance.

“But the heavens grew black with anger at the sight; the storm-clouds gathered in vengeance; grey and leaden, mass above mass, they thickened over the devoted peak of the Marmolata; the sun ceased to smile, and a horrible darkness fell around.

“Closer and closer lowered the clouds, till they fell, enveloping the mountain-top with white fields of snow.

“‘Nay!’ cried the Saviour, compassionately; ‘Father, stay Thine hand!’ And for a moment the convulsion of the angry element was stilled. ‘They knew not what they did,’ He pleaded; and He passed down the path to the next holding.

“‘See,’ He said to the proprietor, who was watching the strange storm with some alarm, ‘see how terrible are the judgments of God! Give Him praise for the blessing He has poured out on you, and save yourself from His anger.’

“‘What have I to do with the misfortunes of others? Every thing goes right with me.’

“‘But it may not always. Be wise betimes, and render praise to God.’

“‘What do I know about God?’ answered the man; ‘I’ve enough to do with taking care of the earth; I don’t want to puzzle my head about heaven!’

“‘All good gifts are from heaven.’ replied the Lord, faintly; and He sank upon the ground exhausted.

“‘See!’ cried a woman who had come out with her husband’s dinner, ‘see, He has fallen; will you do nothing to restore Him?’ And she ran to raise Him up.

“‘Let Him lie.’ said her master, pushing her roughly away; ‘it were better the earth were rid of such idle fellows.’

“He had filled up the measure of his iniquity. ’Hard and icy as his heart has been, so shall his pasture be!’ proclaimed the Angel of Judgment. And as he spread his arms abroad, the clouds fell over the sides of the mountain; the cold blast turned them into ice, and it became a barren glacier for evermore.

“But the angels carried the Lord to the place the Apostles had prepared for Him. And the woman who had pitied Him alone escaped and recorded the story.”

A shudder had fallen over Clamer, and he seemed hardly inclined to break the silence which reigned around. There was not a bird to chirp a note, nor a leaf to flutter, nor a blade of grass to gladden the eye. Meantime they had reached the Fassathal, which, though so fruitful farther along, is scarcely more smiling at its east end.

“Were it not well, Pangrazio,” urged Giuseppa, “to bury our treasure here, before we get nearer the habitations of men? Ah!” she added, “I see what it is, it is not of the weird neighbourhood that you are shy, it is that you trust not me! you think if my birds guard the treasure you will have less control over it than I!”

“Oh, no!” answered Clamer, ashamed to have been found out; “it is not that; but there are as many weird warnings rife here as concerning the Marmolata. Does not the Feuriger Verräther88 haunt this place? and does not the Purgametsch conceal a village which was buried for its sins? Is it not just here that lurk the Angane and the Bergostanö89?”

“Really, I can undertake to defend you against all these chimerical fancies,” replied Giuseppa, scornfully; “but if you don’t feel any confidence in me, it is absurd our attempting to live together.”

“It is not that – I have told you it is not that!” cried Clamer.

“Then shall we do it?” urged she. Thus driven, Clamer could not choose but give in; and Giuseppa sent her monster birds to conceal the treasure they bore, in the hole she pointed out high up in the rocks, and remain in guard over it.

This done they sped over the pleasant Fleimserthal and Cembrathal to Trient.

Eligio Righi received his returning envoy with a hearty welcome, and listened without wearying to his frequent repetition of the tale of his adventures. The part where he described the manner in which he had administered the chastisement on the Devil was what delighted him most, and the account of the roaring of the Devil with the pain.

Moreover, he kept his word, and opened his house and his purse to Clamer, who shared every thing as if it had been his own, and even obtained his sanction to bring home his wife, though he durst not tell him how he obtained her.

Giuseppa had now not only a fine house and broad lands, and plenty of servants and clothes, and every thing she wished for, but she had only to send one of her birds to the treasury in the Fassathal to supply all her caprices as well as wants – yet she was always complaining and quarrelling. Pangrazio often found her quite unbearable; but he remembered she was his wife, and he forgave her, though the more he gave in, the more unreasonable she got.

In the meantime, it must not be supposed that Luxehale had never awaked. True, he slept on for a good week, as Giuseppa had predicted, but that over, he woke up in a pretty passion at finding she had escaped.

With all her evil temper, Giuseppa had suited him very well; he rather enjoyed an occasional broil, it was much more to his taste than peace and amity – and besides, he was sure always to get the best of it. So he determined that this time, instead of going in search of a new wife, he would get the old one back.

“Those who come to me in the way she did,” he reflected, “don’t escape so easily. The others I more or less deceived. They came with me thinking I was one of their own sort; but she followed me with her eyes open – she knew all about me before she came. Besides, they hated the place the moment they found out where they were, but she knew what it was, and yet liked it all along. No, I don’t think she’s of the sort that go back in thorough earnest.”

So he dressed himself up in his best, put a plume in his hat and a flower in his button-hole, and went off to Trient. He had not watched the house where Giuseppa lived many days before he heard her voice raised to that angry key he knew so well.

“That’ll do for me,” he said, rubbing his hands. “It’s all going on right.”

“What do you want more?” he heard Clamer plead. “If there is any thing I can do to please you, I will do it!”

“You are a fool! and there’s nothing in you can please me,” screamed Giuseppa, too angry to be pacified; “you’re not like Luxehale. Why did you ever take me away from him? He was something to look at!”

“It’s going on all right!” said Luxehale, chuckling.

“Why did you come away?” said Pangrazio, quietly.

“I didn’t know what I was about! Would that I had never done it!” she added.

“Oh, don’t say that!” replied Pangrazio, imploringly. But instead of being won by his kindness she only grew the more noisy, till at last Pangrazio could stand it no longer, and he went out to avoid growing angry.

“Now is my time!” said the Devil; and he slipped round to the window. Giuseppa was still fretting and fuming, and invoking Luxehale at the top of her voice.

“Here I am!” said Luxehale. “Will you come back with me, and leave this stupid loafer?”

“What you there!” cried Giuseppa, rushing to the window, and kissing him. “Of course I’ll go with you. Take me away!”

“All right; jump down!” said Luxehale, helping her over the window-sill. Giuseppa threw herself into his arms, and away they walked. Arrived outside the town, Luxehale lifted her up, spread his black bat’s wings, and carried her off.

“Go through the Fleimserthal and the Fassathal,” said Giuseppa; “I’ve got something to show you there.”

“Any thing to please you!” answered Luxehale.

“Oh, it’s not to please me!” cried Giuseppa, taking offence.

“Now don’t begin again; it won’t do with me!” replied Luxehale, with a sternness he had never before exercised. “Mind, I don’t mean to allow any more of it.”

“Oh, if that’s to be it,” said Giuseppa, “I’ll go back again to Pangrazio.”

“No, you won’t!” replied Luxehale; “you don’t go back any more, I’ll take good care of that! And now, what did you want to come by the Fassathal for?”

“Only because it’s the way I passed with Pangrazio, and it renewed a sweet memory of him.”

“That won’t do for me! What was the real reason?”

“What will you give me if I tell you?”

“Nothing. But if you don’t tell me, I shall know how to make you.”

Giuseppa’s courage failed her when she heard him talk like this. She knew she had given herself to him of her own will, and so she belonged to him, and she could not help herself; and now, the best course she could think of was to tell him of the treasure, and trust to the good humour it would put him in, for he was very avaricious, to get her forgiveness out of him.

Clamer came back from a walk outside the town – where he had gone to get cool after his wife’s scolding – just in time to see Luxehale spread his wings and fly away with Giuseppa in his arms. He called to her, but she did not hear him; and all he could do was to stand watching them till they were out of sight.

He came back so gloomy and dejected that his friend Eligio Righi was quite distressed to see him. He was so sympathizing, indeed, that Pangrazio could not forbear telling him the whole story. “Then, if that is so, you need not regret being quit of her,” moralized his sage friend: “she was no wife for an honest man. And as for the treasure, you have enough without that. It was but ill-gotten gain which came to you for knowledge obtained from such a source.”

ZOVANIN SENZA PAURA90;

OR,

THE BOY WHO WENT OUT TO DISCOVER WHAT FEAR MEANT

Zovanin was a bold boy, and never seemed to be afraid of any thing. When other children were afraid lest Orco91 should play them some of his malicious tricks, when people cried out to him, “Take care, and don’t walk in those footprints, they may be those of Orco!” he would only laugh, and say, “Let Orco come; I should like to see him!” When he was sent out upon the mountains with the herds, and had to be alone with them through the dark nights, and his mother bid him not be afraid, he used to stare at her with his great round eyes as if he wondered what she meant. If a lamb or a goat strayed over a difficult precipice, and the neighbours cried out to him, “Let be; it is not safe to go after it down that steep place,” he would seem to think they were making game of him, and would swing himself over the steep as firmly and as steadily as if he were merely bestriding a hedge. He saw people shun passing through the churchyards by dark, and so he used to make it his habit to sleep every night on the graves; and as they said they were afraid of being struck blind if they slept in the moonlight, he would always choose to lie where the moonbeams fell. Nor thunder, nor avalanche, nor fire, nor flood, nor storm seemed to have any terror for him; so that at last people set him to do every kind of thing they were afraid to do themselves, and he got so much wondered at, that he said, “I will go abroad over the world, and see if I can find any where this same Fear that I hear people talk of.”

So he went out, and walked along by the most desolate paths and through frightful stony wildernesses, till he came to a village where there was a fair going on. Zovanin was too tired to care much for the dance, so instead of joining it he asked for a bed.

“A bed!” said the host; “that’s what I can give you least of all. My beds are for regular customers, and not for strollers who drop down from the skies;” for, being full of business at the moment, he was uppish and haughty, as if his day’s prosperity was to last for ever.

While Zovanin was urging that his money was as good as another’s, and the host growing more and more insolent while repeating that he could not receive him, a terrific shouting of men, and screeching of women made itself heard, and pell-mell the whole tribe of peasants, pedlars, and showmen came rushing towards the inn, flying helter-skelter before a furious and gigantic maniac brandishing a formidable club. Every one ran for dear life, seeking what shelter they could find. The inn was filled to overflowing in a trice, and those who could not find entrance there hid themselves in the stables and pig-styes and cellars. But no one was in so great a hurry to hide himself as mine host, who had been so loud with his blustering to a defenceless stranger anon. Only, when he saw the baffled madman breaking in his doors and windows with his massive oaken staff, he put his head dolefully out of the topmost window, and piteously entreated some one to put a stop to the havoc.

Zovanin was not quick-witted: all this noisy scene had been transacted and it had not yet occurred to him to move from the spot where he originally stood; in fact, he had hardly apprehended what it was that was taking place, only at last the host’s vehement gesticulations suggested to him that he wanted the madman arrested.