The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse (6 page)

And because a magic emanated from his strength and boldness, she calmed down, smiled, and stroked his hard brown hand. But as soon as he left, all her fears returned to haunt her. As a result, this extremely proud lady now experienced the secret, humiliating pain of love and jealousy and lay awake every night for half the night in her silken sheets.

In her distress she turned once again to her dwarf Filippo, who meanwhile had regained his composure and acted as if he had forgotten the disgraceful death of his little dog. He sat on the balcony as he had before, reading books or telling stories, while Margherita bleached her hair in the sun. Only one time did she specifically recall that incident, and that was when she asked him why he was so deeply buried in his thoughts, and he replied in a strange voice, “God bless this house, most gracious mistress, that I shall soon leave dead or alive.”

“Why?” she responded.

Then he shrugged his shoulders in his ridiculous way and said,
“I sense it, mistress. The bird is gone. The dog is gone. What reason does the dwarf have for staying here?”

Thereupon she seriously forbade him ever to talk like that again, and he did not speak about it anymore. Indeed, the lady became convinced that he no longer thought about it, and she once again had complete trust in him. Whenever she talked to him about her concerns, he defended Signor Baldassare and did not reveal in any way that he held anything against the young cavalier. Consequently the dwarf regained the full friendship of his mistress.

One summer evening, as a cool wind was sweeping in from the sea, Margherita climbed into her gondola along with the dwarf and had herself rowed out into the open sea. When the gondola came near Murano, the city was swimming like a white image of a dream in the distance on the smooth, glittering lagoon. She commanded Filippo to tell a story, while she lay stretched out on the black cushion. The dwarf crouched across from her on the bottom of the gondola, his back turned toward the high bow of the vessel. The sun hung on the edge of the distant mountains, which could hardly be seen through the rosy haze. Some bells began to ring on the island of Murano. The gondolier, numb from the heat and half asleep, sluggishly moved his long rudder, and along with the rudder, his bent figure was reflected in the water laced with seaweed. Sometimes a freight barge sailed close by, or a fishing boat with a lateen sail, whose pointed triangle momentarily concealed the distant towers of the city.

“Tell me a story!” commanded Margherita, and Filippo bent his heavy head, played with the gold fringes of his silk dress-coat, deliberated a while, and told the following tale:

“During the time my father lived in Constantinople, long
before I was born, he experienced something most remarkable and unusual. At that time he was a practicing doctor and consultant in difficult cases, having learned the science of medicine and magic from a Persian who lived in Smyrna and had gained a great deal of knowledge in both fields. My father was an honest man and depended not on deception or flattery but only on his art. Nevertheless, he suffered from the envy and slander of many a swindler and quack. So he kept yearning for an opportunity to return to his homeland. On the other hand, my father did not want to travel home until he had amassed at least a small fortune, for he knew his family and relatives were languishing in poverty at home. Although he witnessed numerous deceivers and incompetent doctors grow rich without effort, he himself did not enjoy any luck. Consequently he became more and more despondent and almost gave up hope of achieving success without tricking people. Although he did in fact have many clients and had helped hundreds of people in very difficult situations, they were mostly the poor and humble, and he would have felt ashamed to accept more than a small token from them for his services.

“As a result of this miserable predicament, my father determined it was best to leave the city. He planned either to leave on foot without any money or to offer his services on board a ship. He made up his mind to wait one more month, however, because judging from the astrological charts, it seemed still possible that he might encounter some luck within this time period. Yet the month passed without anything fortunate occurring. So on the last day, he sadly packed up his meager possessions and got ready to depart the next morning.

“On the evening of the last day he wandered back and forth along the beach outside the city, and you can certainly imagine how
dreary his thoughts were. The sun had long since set, and the stars were already spreading their white light over the calm sea.

“Suddenly my father heard a doleful sobbing very near him. He looked all around, but since he could see no one, he became terribly afraid, as he believed that this was an evil omen regarding his departure. When the moaning was repeated even louder, however, he took courage and called out, ‘Who’s there?’ Immediately he heard a splashing on the bank of the sea, and when he turned in that direction, he saw a bright figure lying there in the pale glimmer of the stars. Thinking that it was a shipwrecked person or a swimmer, he went over to help and saw, to his astonishment, the most beautiful, slender mermaid, white as snow, projecting half her body out of the water. Who can describe his surprise when the nymph spoke to him in an imploring voice. ‘Aren’t you the Greek magician who lives on Yellow Alley?’

“ ‘That’s me,’ he answered in a most friendly way. ‘What do you want from me?’

“Once more the young mermaid began to moan, stretched out her beautiful arms, and implored my father with many sobs to take pity on her and prepare a strong love potion for her because she was pining away in futile desire for her lover. She looked at him with such beautiful eyes, pleading and sad, that his heart was moved, and he decided right then and there to help her. Before he did anything, however, he asked her how she intended to reward him, and she promised him a chain of pearls so long that a woman would be able to sling it around her neck eight times. ‘But you will not receive this treasure,’ she continued, ‘until I have seen that your magic has done its job.’

“My father did not have to worry about this, for he was certain
of the power of his art. He rushed back into the city, opened up his neatly packed bundle, and prepared the desired love potion with such speed that by midnight he was back at the bank of the sea, where the mermaid was waiting for him. He handed her a tiny vial filled with the precious liquid. Then she thanked him with great emotion and told him to return to the same spot the following night in order to receive the rich reward that she had promised.

“He went away and spent the night and the next day in great expectation. Though he had not the slightest doubt about the power and effect of his potion, he was not sure whether he could depend on the word of the mermaid. With such thoughts he proceeded to the same place at nightfall. He did not have to wait long until the mermaid appeared out of the nearby waves. But my father was overcome with horror when he saw what he had helped bring about with his art. As she drew closer with a smile on her lips and extended toward him the heavy pearl chain in her right hand, he saw the corpse of an extraordinarily handsome young man in her left arm. He could tell from his clothes that the man was a Greek sailor. His face was as pale as death, and the locks of his hair swam on the waves. The mermaid caressed him tenderly and rocked him in her arms as though he were a little boy.

“As soon as my father saw this, he uttered a loud cry and cursed himself and his art, whereupon the mermaid suddenly sank into the water with her lover. The chain of pearls lay on the sand, and since he could not undo the harm that he had caused, he picked up the necklace and carried it under his coat to his dwelling, where he separated the pearls in order to sell them one by one. By the time he left for Cyprus aboardship, he had plenty of money and believed that he would never have to worry about poverty again. But the blood
of 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 finally
had 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 accompanying
them, 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 bride in the cabin. The dwarf sat calmly in the stern of the gondola and regarded the old high, dark houses of the Rio dei Barardi as the gondolier navigated his vessel until it reached the lagoon at the end of the Grand Canal at the old Palace Giustiniani, where there was still a small garden in those days. Today the beautiful Palace Barozzi stands there, as everyone knows.

Occasionally muffled laughter, the soft noise of a kiss, or part of a conversation could be heard coming from the cabin. Filippo was not curious. He looked out over the water toward the sunny Riva, then at the slender tower of San Giorgio Maggiore, then back at the lion pillar of the Piazzelta. At times he blinked at the hardworking gondolier or splashed the water with a twig that he had found in the bottom of the gondola. His face was as ugly and impassive as always and revealed nothing about his thoughts. Just then he was thinking about his drowned puppy Fino and the strangled parrot. He brooded on how close destruction always was to all creatures, animals as well as humans, and he realized that there is nothing we can predict or know for certain in this world except death. He thought about his father and his homeland and his entire life. His face turned scornful for a moment when he considered that wise people serve fools almost everywhere and that the lives of most people are similar to a bad comedy. He smiled as he looked at his rich silk clothes.

And while he sat there silently with a smile, everything happened that he had been waiting for all along. Baldassare’s voice rang out from beneath the roof of the gondola, and right after that
Margherita called out, “Where did you put the wine and the cup, Filippo?”

Signore Baldassare was thirsty, and it was now time to bring him the potion with the wine. So the dwarf opened his small blue bottle, poured the liquid into a cup, then filled it with red wine. Margherita opened the curtains, and the dwarf offered the lady peaches and the bridegroom the wine. She threw him a questioning glance or two and seemed edgy.

Signore Baldassare lifted the cup to his lips, but he cast a glance at the dwarf standing in front of him and was suddenly filled with suspicion.

“Wait a second!” he cried. “Scoundrels like you are never to be trusted. Before I drink, I want you to taste the wine first.”

Filippo did not change his expression. “The wine is good,” he said politely.

But Baldassare remained suspicious. “Well, why don’t you drink it?” he asked angrily.

“Forgive me, sir,” replied the dwarf, “but I’m not accustomed to drinking wine.”