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Updated: June 27, 2025
Not an hour had passed, and the moon still stood in the sky, when they arrived at the kopanitscha of Görgö. "Here we stop," cried Pirka. "This is the house where the doves bill one another on the gables." Just then, however, all the doves were asleep; but in the courtyard a woman was wandering about, who raised her hands toward the moon, and made all sorts of frantic gestures.
The peasant costume she was obliged to keep on. However, she could tell her husband that it was her kitchen dress. The keys of the corridor and the trapdoor Michal handed to Pirka, that she might admit the knocker below.
But Barbara Pirka immediately gave Simplex four of the eight gold pieces, the rest she kept for herself, and from that day forth Michal no longer heard the songs of the field-trumpet sounding in the courtyard. Which goes to prove that the society of great folks is not always a thing to be desired.
Meanwhile, the howling of the dogs grew fainter, as if the number of them was gradually growing smaller. "What a long time Henry remains away," sighed the young wife. "He'll very soon be here now, my pretty sweetheart!" By this time only two dogs were howling in the courtyard below. Pirka smiled, and began to arch her eyebrows. "His reverence will be here almost immediately," said she.
Michal, she said, was to see what was written on it. Michal took the scrap, and read aloud the name: "Valentine!" In her terror she threw it back into the flames. But the flames, so far from consuming the wet scrap of paper, tossed it up into the air, and the name of the beloved one flew up the chimney with the smoke. "It won't burn, ladykin!" laughed Pirka. "Hocus-pocus! there it is again!"
It was only when this self-imposed abstinence lasted long enough to endanger the lady's life that third parties stepped in and put a stop to it. So Michal had her own way entirely, neither getting up, nor dressing, nor speaking, nor taking any nourishment to speak of. But on Friday, when Pirka came in to see her, Michal sneezed violently.
"The reverend gentleman," he added, "will remain behind with me, for I've a couple of words to say to him." Michal thanked him for his courtesy, and holding out her hand to her husband, asked him shyly: "I suppose you will come soon?" "As soon as I have received my father's blessing," replied Henry, unctuously, from which Barbara Pirka gathered that the clergyman was the master's son.
She had oval features, a dimpled chin, red cheeks, black eyebrows, sparkling eyes, and a lofty forehead, but her whole face was now full of wrinkles, and the furrows on her forehead looked like the stave lines in a music-book. "Jesus, Mary, and St. Anna protect me!" cried the wagoner, with chattering teeth. "If it is not Barbara Pirka in the flesh!"
And now only a single dog was howling through the night. The storm, too, furiously shook the window-casements. Suddenly the last dog ceased barking. Pirka blinked, and said: "The master will soon be here now." During these odd scenes, Michal consoled herself with the reflection that the whole thing would be over in a day.
So that was why Michal complained so angrily about that tiresome man. She knew by instinct that the best way to keep him in the house was to complain of him. "Oh, my darling!" said Barbara Pirka, "don't say that! He is my trumpeter, quite a superior young man, I assure you." "And pray when will he take himself off and let people sleep o' nights?" she asked with dissembled bitterness.
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