‘I have.’
‘What is her birth-mark?’
‘She has a mole under her right breast. If you do not believe me, here is the ring as well.’
‘It’s all right; take the ship and everything in it, and come home, and I will give you also the estate.’
He went home, and said never a word to the lady; and he made a little boat, and put her in it, and let it go on the Danube. ‘Since you have done this, away you go on the Danube.’ He gave his whole estate, and became poor, and carried water for the Jews.
A whole year she floated on the Danube; the year went like a day. An old man caught her, and drew her to shore, and opened the boat, and took her out, and brought her to his house. She abode with him three years, and spun with her spindle, and made some money. And she bought herself splendid man’s clothes, and dressed herself, and cut her hair short, and went back to her husband. She went and passed the night beneath a lime-tree, and slept under the lime-tree. In that city the emperor was blind. She saw a dream: in the lime-tree was a hole, and in the hole was water; and if the emperor will anoint himself with that water he will see. She arose in the morning, and searched around, and found the hole. And she had a little pail, and she drew water in the pail, and put it in her pocket, and went into that city to an inn, and drank three kreutzers’ worth of brandy. And she asked the Jew, ‘What’s the news with you?’
‘Our emperor is blind, and he will give his kingdom to him who shall make him see.’
‘I will do so.’
The Jew went to the emperor, and the emperor said to him, ‘Hah! go and bring him to me.’ [[123]]
They brought him to the emperor. ‘Will you make me see? then I will give you my daughter.’