Page:Dumas - Tales of Strange adventure (Methuen, 1907).djvu/87

Rh looking at herself in the glass and dropping curtseys. Oh it should surely have opened my eyes; but what is written is written!

"I began a conversation with her by means of signs. I asked her if she was not hungry. I knew it was through the stomach you make animals love you, and somehow I had a great wish, if only out of curiosity, to make this woman love me. She told me 'yes' in the same way; whereupon I brought her water-melons, grapes, pears, and anything else in the way of fruit I could procure. She manifested no surprise, but pounced upon the viands directly she saw them. Only when she had eaten the fruit, she was for eating the plate, and we had all the difficulty in the world in making her understand that this was not eatable.

"Meantime the Cure had taken his precautions. He had explained to the Burgomaster's daughter that, albeit the mermaid might be a fish, she was a fish that bore too strong a resemblance to a woman to remain lodged in a bachelor's house. Accordingly, just as she was finishing her meal, the Burgomaster came for her with his wife and his other daughter.

"The two new friends started off, as happily as could be, arm in arm. Only the mermaid walked barefoot; she could not wear the shoes they had brought her, — not that they were too small, for it was just the opposite; but this part of her accoutrement was the last thing she could get accustomed to.

"Coming to the door, she cast a look at the sea. Perhaps she felt a sudden longing to return to her old home, but she would have had to push her way through the whole population of the village, which had assembled about the house to see her pass; besides she would have spoilt her fine clothes. She only shook her head and set off quietly for the Burgomaster's house, followed by the assembled inhabitants of Monnikendam, shouting in chorus 'the Buchold! the Buchold!' which means in Low Dutch the Water-maid. As she had no name of her own, the title stuck to her.

"I had said a hundred times over that I would only marry a mermaid; and lo! here was one ready for me. So that night all my friends toasted my approaching marriage with the Buchold; she was young, she was pretty, she had looked a: me out of her green eyes in a sort of way that I did not dislike, she was dumb; upon my word I was not loath to join in the toast.

"Three months later she could do everything a woman need do,—except speak. In her Frisian costume, she was the prettiest girl, not only in all Holland, but in all Frisia to boot; she did not seem ill-disposed towards me, and I was in love with her like a calf. I had every right to her, seeing it was I who had saved her life, and there were no difficulties to be apprehended from her relatives. So in due course I married her.

"She was wedded at the Town Hall before the Burgomaster under the name of Marie the Buchold, his reverence the Cure having deemed it becoming, when he baptized her, to give her the name of the Mother of Our Lord.

"There was a great dinner at my expense, followed by a ball, at which the newly-wed Marie did the honours,—by signs, drinking, eating, dancing like any other woman, only all the while as dumb as a tench. The guests were unanimous in their felicitations; seeing her so pretty and sweet and dumb, all said with one accord, 'Lucky dog, Olifus, eh? lucky dog!'

"Next morning I woke at ten o'clock. She was awake already and was watching my slumbers. I opened my eyes suddenly, and I fancied I read on her features a strange look of mockery and mischief. Plowever, directly she saw my eyes fixed on her, her face resumed its ordinary expression, and for the moment I forgot all about the other.

"'Good morning, little wife,' I said.

"'Good morning, little husband,' she answered back.

"I gave vent to a cry of despair, and the sweat rose to my brew; my wife could talk!

"It seems marriage had loosened the string of her tongue. This happened December 22nd, 1823."

"And now your good health, sir," added Père Olifus, tossing off a second glass of schnapps, and inviting Biard and myself to do the like, "and don't you marry a mermaid!"

So saying, he passed the back of his hand over his lips, and resumed the thread of his narrative.