Page:Poet Lore, volume 36, 1925.pdf/373

 Ivan (Steps on the bridge, observes, then with a mocking smile). You are as stupid as you are old. Do you really think you can entice anyone by means of that motley array and capture some girl with it? Or perhaps you are only doing this for your own amusement.

MìchalMíchal [sic].—No, for her, (sighs) only for her. I do this for the sake of the miller’s young ward.

Ivan.—Ha, ha, Míchal, you string up ribbons while they are getting a bast rope for you. The miller has it ready for you.

MìchalMíchal [sic]—(Angrily). That he has, and also his conjuring book.

Ivan.—Aha, he invokes you with horrible words. And you, instead of teasing him, hang up ribbons and sigh, beg and—adorn yourself. Hm, what a lovely headdress you have, how slick, (looking him over) and boots—let me see—little red boots. You have certainly taken great pains with those.

Míchal (Appeased, self-satisfied).—Pretty, aren’t they? That is so—you know, you know I should like to get married, ever so much, and I should like to have children, and bushels of them, too. I should roll around with them as with kittens; I should play with them, sport with them; I should bring them here to the bank, out into the sun, like young otters—

Ivan (Interrupting).—And listen to their squealing, whimpering, and shrieks, straighten out their quarrels for them, and be everlastingly out of temper. Brr—your sighs are in vain. Leave off tying ribbons, forget your little boots. You are a fool as sure as there is weakness in love. Love has made you blind and feeble. That miller will catch you yet, tie you to the stove, or club you and drive you out of here in—your little red boots, your pretty little hatjhat. [sic]

Míchal (Angrily).—Me? me? You moldy willow stump, you nasty plague that have come to preach to me, who invited you, why did you crawl out of that foul fishpond of yours?

Ivan.—I am moving.

Míchal. So? And why?

Ivan—Because of the wisdom of the honorable and careful townspeople, since they agreed in council to drain the large fish pond outside of the city.

Míchal.—Aha—

Ivan.—I did not wait for them. So I immediately gathered my twelve silver pike that rowed me around in my boat. I gathered them so that they may not get into the frying pans of some of those townspeople; so that the noble mayor and learned