“Good. Now I will become a beautiful garden, and thou the gardener. And when my father comes and asks if thou hast seen a couple pass, reply that thou weedest lettuces, not broccoli. And when he asks again, answer that thou weedest broccoli, not lettuces.”
So it all came to pass, and the wizard, out of patience, returned home.
“Well, and what did you see?” inquired his wife.
“Only a garden and a gardener.”
“Ahi—stupido! Those were the two. Start! This time I will go with you!”
After a while Antonuccio saw the two following, and gaining on them rapidly.
“Marietta, here come your father and mother. Now we are in a nice mess.” [147]
“Don’t be afraid. Now I will become a fountain fair and broad, like a small lake, and thou a pretty pigeon, to whom they will call; but for mercy’s sake don’t let yourself be taken, for then all will be over with us.”
The wizard and his wife came to the fountain and saw the dove, and tried to inveigle and catch it with grain. But it would not be caught, neither could the witch quench her thirst with the water. So, finding that both were beyond her power, she cried in a rage:
“When Antonuccio kisses his mother,
He’ll forget Marietta and every other.”