“There was in Arad a lady who went to a ball. She had a necklace to which were attached four rings. During the evening she took this from her neck, and doubling it, wore it on her arm as a bracelet. In the house where she lived was a young gentleman who came to accompany her home from the ball. All at once, late at night, she missed her necklace and the rings, which were of great value.
“The next day she sent for a gypsy woman, who, being consulted, declared that the collar had been stolen by some one who was very intimate in her house. Her suspicions rested on the young man who had accompanied her home. He was arrested, but discharged for want of evidence.
“Three months after there came a kellner, a waiter, from some other city, to Arad. The lady, being in a café or some such place of resort, was waited on by this man, and saw one of her rings on his hand. He was arrested, and before the police declared that he held the ring in pledge, having advanced money upon it to a certain gentleman. This gentleman was the lady’s betrothed, and he had stolen her necklace and rings. The gypsy had truly enough said that the articles had been taken by some one who was intimate in her house.”
The gentleman who told me this story also said that the death of his father had been foretold by a gypsy—that is, by a lady who was of half-gypsy blood.
It should be borne in mind, though few realize its truth, that in stages of society where people believe earnestly in anything—for example, in witchcraft or the evil eye—there results in time a state of mind or body in which they are actually capable of being killed with a curse, or a fear of seeing what is not before them in the body, and of many nervous conditions which are absolutely impossible and incomprehensible to the world of culture at the present day. But there are still places where witchcraft may be said to exist literally, for there the professors of the art to all intents work miracles, because they are believed in. There is abundance of such faith extant, even in England. I have heard the names of three “white” witch doctors in as many towns in the West of England, who are paid a guinea a visit, their specialty being to “unlock,” or neutralize, or defeat the evil efforts of black witches. This, as is indeed true, indicates that a rather high class of patients put faith in them. In Hungary, in the country, the majority, even of the better class, are very much influenced by gypsy-witches. Witness the following, which is interesting simply because, while there is very little indeed in it, it was related to me as a most conclusive proof of magic power:—
“In a suburb of Szegedin, inhabited only by peasants, there is a school with a farm attached to it. The pay of the teacher is trifling, but he can make a comfortable living from the land. This was held by an old man, who had a young assistant. The old man died; the youth succeeded him, and as he found himself doing well, in due time he took a wife. They lived happily together for a year and had a daughter. In the spring the teacher had to work very hard, not only in school but on his farm, and so for the first time contracted the habit of going to the tavern to refresh himself, and what was worst, of concealing it from his wife under plausible tales, to which she gave no trust. She began to be very unhappy, and, naturally enough, suspected a rival.
“Of course she took advice from a gypsy woman, who heard all the story and consulted her cards. ‘There is,’ she said, ‘no woman whatever in the way. There is no sign of one for good or evil, na latchi na misec, in the cards. But beware! for there is a great and unexpected misfortune coming, and more than this I cannot see.’ So she took her pay and departed. Suddenly her child fell ill and died after eight days. Then the husband reformed his ways, and all went well with them. So, you see, the gypsy foretold it all, wonderfully and accurately.”
It requires no sorcery to conjecture that the gypsy already knew the habits of the schoolmaster, as the Romany is generally familiar with the tavern of every town. To predict a misfortune at large is a sure card for every prophetess. What is remarkable is that a man of the world and one widely travelled, as was my informant, attached great importance to the story. It is evident that where so much of the sherris sack of faith accompanies such a small crust of miracle there must be a state of society in which miracles in their real sense are perfectly capable of being worked.
