“And so, what do you want from me?”
“Please, my lady, give me permission to sit here until the moon comes out. Then I’ll be able to see where I’m going and I’ll be off.” She looked at him with an angry eye and granted him permission to spend the night in an old barn in her courtyard. He lay down on the straw and dozed off.
That night it rained heavily. When the peddler rose in the morning, he saw that the entire land was one great swamp. He realized that the lady was a hard person. Let me abandon myself, he thought, to the mercy of Heaven, and I’ll ask no favors from ungenerous people. He put his pack on his shoulders and prepared to leave. The lady looked out at him. “It seems to me that the roof needs mending. Can you do anything about it?” The peddler set down his pack. “I’ll be glad to jump right up and take care of it.” She gave him a ladder and he climbed up to the top of the roof, where he found shingles torn loose by the wind. At once, he set them back in place, paying no heed to himself while all his clothes gushed water and his shoes were like two buckets. What difference does it make to me, he thought, whether I’m on the top of a roof or walking through the forest? There’s as much rain in the one place as in the other. And perhaps because I’m helping her out, she’ll show some kindness to me and let me stay in her house till the rains stop.
The peddler fixed the shingles, sealed the leaks in the roof, and climbed down. “I’m sure that from now on the rain won’t get into your house,” he told the lady. “You are a real craftsman,” she answered. “Tell me what your fee is and I’ll pay you.” He put his hand over his heart and said, “God forbid that I should take a single penny from my lady. It is not my practice to accept payment for anything that is not part of my trade, certainly not from my lady, who has shown me the kindness of allowing me to spend the night in her house.” She looked at him with suspicion, for she thought that he spoke in this manner in order to ingratiate himself with her and get more money out of her. Finally she said, “Sit down and I’ll bring you some breakfast.” He stood up to wring out his clothes, then he emptied the water from his shoes and looked all around. From the many antlers hanging on the walls, it was clear that this was a hunter’s house. Or perhaps it wasn’t a hunter’s house at all, and those antlers were simply hung up for decoration, as is the custom of forest dwellers, who decorate their homes with the horns of wild animals.
While he was still standing and looking, the mistress of the house returned, bringing with her hot liquor and cakes. He drank and ate and drank. After he had eaten and drunk, he said to her, “Perhaps there is something else here that needs to be fixed? I’m ready to do whatever my lady wishes.” She cast a glance around the house and told him, “Look and see.” The peddler was happy that he had been granted permission to stay in the house until the rains passed. He began to busy himself, fixing one thing and then another, and he asked no payment. In the evening she prepared supper for him and made up a bed for him in a room where she kept old things no longer in use. The peddler thanked the mistress of the house for bestowing such bounties upon him, and he swore that never would he forget her kindness to him.
By the next morning, new rains were falling. The peddler looked first outside and then at the face of the lady: Who was prepared to have pity on him sooner? The mistress of the house sat huddled in silence, and a great feeling of desolation arose from the furniture all around. The animals’ horns on the walls were enveloped in mist and they gave off an odor like the odor of living flesh. Perhaps she wanted to relieve that feeling of desolation which gripped the heart, or perhaps she was moved to pity for this fellow who would have to walk through rains and swamps. Whatever the reason, the lady began to speak to him. About what did she speak and about what didn’t she speak! About rains that did not stop and winds that blew without letup, about roads that were becoming impassable and grain that would rot, and much of the same sort. The peddler thanked her in his heart for every word because every word extended his time in the house so that he did not have to drag himself along the ways in rain and cold and storm. And she also was pleased that she had a living creature there. She took up her knitting needles and told him to sit down. He sat before her and began to tell of noblemen and noblewomen, of lords and ladies, of all that he knew and all that was pleasant for her to hear. In the meantime, they had drawn closer together. He said to her, “My lady lives all alone. Has she no husband or friend and companion? Surely there must be here many distinguished gentlemen to seek the company of such a fine lady.”
“I had a husband,” she said. The peddler sighed, “And he died.” “No,” she corrected, “he was killed.” The peddler sighed over her husband who was killed and asked, “How was he killed?” She answered, “The police don’t know, and now you want to know! What difference does it make to you how he was killed, whether an evil beast ate him or whether he was slaughtered with a knife? Don’t you yourself sell knives with which it is possible to slaughter a man?”
The peddler saw that the lady was not inclined to discuss her husband, so he kept silent. And she too was silent. After a little while the peddler spoke again. “May the Lord grant that they find the murderers of your husband to exact vengeance from them.”
“They won’t find them,” she said, “they won’t find them. Not every murderer is meant to be caught.” The peddler lowered his eyes. “I am sorry, my lady, that I have reminded you of your sorrow. If I only knew how I could cheer you up, I’d give half my life to do it.” The lady looked at him and smiled a queer smile, perhaps in contempt or perhaps in gratification, or perhaps just an ordinary smile that one person smiles to another and the other interprets as he wishes: if he is naive, then he interprets it in his own favor. The peddler, who was a naive man, interpreted the laughter of that woman in his own favor and for his own benefit. And since he was sorry for this woman who, to judge by her age and beauty, should have had men courting her, he suddenly looked upon himself as just such a man. He began to speak to her the sort of things that the ear of a young woman loves to hear. God only knows where this simple peddler learned such a style of talking. He soon found courage and began to speak of love, and even though she was a lady and he was a poor peddler, she welcomed his words and showed him affection. And even when the rains had passed and the roads had dried, they did not part.
The peddler stayed with the lady. Not in the old barn and not in the room for old things that were no longer used. No, he stayed in the lady’s room and slept in her husband’s bed, while she waited upon him as though he were her lord. Every day she prepared him a feast from all that she had, in house and field, every good fowl and every fat fowl. And if she broiled the meat in butter, he did not hold back from it. At first, when he would see her twisting the neck of a bird, he would be shocked. Afterward, he ate and even sucked the bones dry, as is the way of worthless folk: at first they are unwilling to commit a sin and afterward they commit all the sins in the world with a hearty appetite. He had neither wife nor children, he had no one to miss, and so he lived with the lady. He took off his peddler’s clothes and put on the garments of aristocracy, and he fell in with the people of the place until he was like one of them. The lady did not allow him to labor, neither in the house nor in the field. On the contrary, she took all the work upon herself while she treated him royally with food and drink, and if she was short-tempered with him in the daytime she was loving to him at night, as it is a woman’s nature to be sometimes one way and sometimes the other. And so passed one month and then two months, until he began to forget that he was a poor peddler and she a lady. She on her part forgot that he was a Jew or anything of the sort.