How Blindschleicher Went Courting
Blindschleicher was a handsome lad, but dull-witted. One would think therefore that he must have been a great favourite with the women. But the village lasses of Zesendorf were not that sort. They would not “put up with a fellow whom nature had but half-finished,” as one of their spokeswomen had it.
“But nature did not leave me half-finished!” said Blindschleicher.
“She did,” exclaimed the girl, “because she did not put a head on you.”
He immediately seized that member in both of his hands, thereby proving the truth of what she had said.
The fact was corroborated later by the military commission. He was nearly six feet high, but they dismissed him with the verdict, “too short by a head.”
But there was one thing Blindschleicher knew—viz., that women-folks are to be prevailed upon mainly by flattery; and that a good head is not a necessary equipment for flattery and courtship is a well-known fact. But the handsome gardener’s apprentice had nothing that was at all available in his curly pate, and it must be admitted that nothing at all is too little. He was sweet as a fig-pudding. When he went out most of his button-holes were decked out with roses and rosebuds. If it looks pretty to wear one rose, as others do, he would argue, it must improve the effect to wear a number. His hair was made smooth and shiny with lard, and above each ear he would plaster it on each temple in a delicate crescent, like a Vienna dandy. He always chose bright and striking colours for his neckties, and tied them into knots, with long ends gracefully flowing. This as an indication of originality, and to attract the girls. But instead of the girls, the turkeys ran at him, and chased him with cackling vindictiveness through the village.
In associating with men, he was rather helpless, and he avoided them as much as might be, because they either chaffed him or ignored him, according as their mood was frolicsome or serious. Toward women he put on his most gracious mien, and oftentimes he would secretly sigh, “Ah, if I had a wife! if I only could get a wife!” For a long time he could not make out the reason for his desire, but at last his feeling consolidated into a point, and then it grew into a thought, and he gradually became conscious why it was that he wanted a wife. He could then say to his tormentors, “You may laugh as much as you please. Here is one who will have me!” And there was one in particular before whose countenance he would melt like butter in the sun.
That was Liese, the farm-maid. She was the most blooming lass in the valley, and he set a wistful eye upon her.
And Blindschleicher confided his troubles to his friend the watchman, as they walked through the silent village one night. “Man,” he lamented, “never was there such ill luck as mine. You wouldn’t believe it. I’m head over ears in love with the lass, and there’s no help for it.”
“Why don’t you take her, then?” said the watchman.
“Take her, fool! when she won’t so much as look at you!”
“She needn’t look at me. My old woman is firmly yoked to me.”
“But it is at me that she might look,” said Blindschleicher. “When I think of all the trouble I go to to make myself agreeable! And as for her—when I say to her, ‘Liese, good morning, Liese!’ she turns on her heel; and when I say, ‘How bonny you are, Liese!’ she says, ‘How clever you are, lad!’”
“Well, don’t that please you?” said the watchman.
“How can it please me, when she goes on to say ‘she will only take a fool.’ She’s a vixen, is Liese! And when I give her a rose, and say, ‘You look just like it, you are as pink, and you are as sweet, and you are as thorny!’ she takes the pretty blossom out of my hand, and gives it to the goat to eat.”
“Blindschleicher,” said the watchman in a low tone, “you’re on the wrong track to get a wife.”
“I am sick at heart,” said the gardener’s apprentice, and he looked it and hung his head. “Time and time again have I said to her, ‘Precious Liese, darling Liese, you are like butter and honey; I could eat you up for love. I will kiss your feet, and you may tread upon me. There is nothing you could do that would hurt me,’ I said. ‘You may put your arms tight around my neck, and smother me with your cheek; it would not hurt me. You are like a heavenly paradise to me. I can do a great deal of fine talking when I once get started. Think of the ardour of my youthful blood,’ I said.”
“And what did she reply?”
“‘Go to the barber and get bled,’ she answered. ”Oh, she is a stone, man; she is a stone.”
“Be comforted, lad,” said the watchman, who was a kind and experienced man. “If she is a stone, we will manage her. Stones cannot be raised by whining and pining, good friend. When there is a stone on the ground you must loosen it first by a sharp knock, then you can lift it. Do you understand?”
“What do you mean? Shall I run into her to shake her loose?”
“Not so fast, my lad. There is such a thing as a simile you must know. Supposing, for instance, I say you are an ass, you must not take it in dead earnest, but merely as a means of comparison.”
“Yes, yes,” said Blindschleicher. “When I hear you talk like that I understand you well. You are not rude like the others, and you are my best friend. But if I could but have Liese!”
“Women,” said the watchman with an air of superior knowledge, standing still and leaning upon his long staff, “women are the most peculiar among God’s creatures. The first human being did sorry credit to his creator, as is apt to be the case when you’re a new hand at making things. It turned out a plain wooden man. But the second human being—the second, you see, was much more of a success. It turned out to be something very different from the man, much finer, so much finer. The truth is, man is the job of an apprentice; woman shows the touch of a master. I understand women; ah, I understand them! An old watchman like me, who has his eyes open every hour of the night, knows a thing or two, good friend. If you cannot win them with dainties and fine manners, remember that it isn’t every bird that can be caught with sugar. Try some other way; do something to offend her. Not in any faint-hearted, playful way, but seriously and thoroughly; do something to her that will make her think of you, and that will give her pain when she thinks of you. Soon she will stop teasing you and looking upon you with disdainful indifference. Perhaps she will hate you; but, my friend, you must know that hatred is a good deal nearer to love than indifference is. There is many a tale I could tell you of how love began with anger and pain. That’s what I meant about loosening the stone. There is nothing like the harsh, reckless deed of a man to make an impression. Try it; you can’t lose anything.”
Blindschleicher went his way and made extensive preparations to think out this new idea. For hours he walked by the side of the brook, but how can we catch hold of an idea when the water is making so much noise! He stole across the fields, but there the crickets disturbed him, or a dark, mysterious figure would rise up in front of him which, for all he knew, might be a ghost. To be sure the schoolmaster had said to him, “Blindschleicher, I pledge you my word, you are safe from ghosts!” But then, who knows! It seems wicked enough to be thinking out something in the silent night wherewith to offend one’s beloved. “Wicked or not wicked, if I could but make her have me!”
It was not until he was pulling off his boots in his own room that various more or less attractive devices occurred to him by means of which he might offend her. When he was in bed he discarded them one by one. He thought he could hurt her most deeply by going up to her and saying, “Liese, you do not love me; farewell for ever, I go to die!” He was quite stupefied by the power of this thought. It gave the poor fellow a headache, and the next morning when he got up, and the sun shone brightly upon the flowers of the garden, he felt that this would not do, and he said to himself, “Best say nothing about dying.”
This selfsame day was a Sunday, so he donned his tight grey pantaloons, a yellow flowered vest, with the ends of a cherry-coloured necktie fluttering over it, put rosebuds in all of the button-holes of his blue jacket, arranged the two little greased crescents of hair neatly upon his cheeks, bestowed due care upon his sprouting moustache, and a look in the mirror convincing him that he was irresistible, his heart swelled with happy forebodings.
It was with solemn feelings that he walked through the shady alley to church; this very afternoon he would try to meet Liese, and would carry out his purpose of mortally offending her. She would weep, she would pout; he would ask her forgiveness, and then their relation would appear altogether in a new light. Should these extremest measures prove unsuccessful, then he would put her out of his mind and offend some other girl. If that was all that was required, why love was easy play.
“There goes the girl-hunter!” called out a giggling urchin as Blindschleicher was passing a group of lads with a mien half haughty and half self-conscious.
As he reached the church the bells were just ringing for High Mass, and the people were crowding through the door, and he joined them like a good Christian as he was. Turning once to see who it was that was in such a mighty hurry behind him, whom should he discover quite near his side but Liese. She was giggling with some lads, who pressed close about her. Blindschleicher saw the vessel for holy water wherein each dipped his fingers in passing. At that moment the gardener’s apprentice was seized with a sudden impulse. Dipping his hollow hand in the water, and crying, “Here is one whose devil I would expel!” he threw the entire handful into fair Liese’s face.
Liese caught her breath, said loud and distinctly, “He is out already!” and gave the fellow a resounding box on his ear.
And that is how Blindschleicher went courting, and what it brought him.
P. K. Rosegger.