Who should it happen to be that set themselves to this work? Two old retainers. They had seen in a town some time before a very beautiful princess. Well, what have they gone and done, these two servitors? They have caused the portrait of this princess to be painted on the walls of the baths. These two servants came back and announced to their lord, ‘We have done everything we were ordered to do.’
‘Very good. How much now do you ask for it?’
‘We shall be satisfied with whatever your grace deigns to give us.’
The nobleman gave them four thousand florins. They accorded to their lord their best thanks. Then the Jew boy called to the nobleman’s son, ‘Come, the baths are now built, let us see what there is to be seen.’
Thither they went, but this young Jew was always wiser than the nobleman’s son. They entered the first hall, where they saw painted upon the walls various kinds of birds, wolves; all which delighted the son of the lord. Then all by himself he enters the other apartment, and what does he behold there? The portrait of this lovely princess painted on one of the walls. He gazes at the likeness of the princess, and is so greatly enchanted with it that he swoons away. The young Jew sees him (swoon); he revives him with vinegar; and he asks the nobleman’s son, ‘What is the matter with you?’
‘O brother, if I do not have this princess to wife I shall kill myself.’
‘Hush, for the love of God,’ replied the young Jew; ‘do not cry so loud. For you shall perhaps have her indeed, only not so soon as you wish.’
He returned home very sick, this nobleman’s son. [[177]]
‘What ails him?’ asks his father; but the young Jew was ashamed to own what had happened. Orders were given to fetch doctors with all speed; various remedies are administered; but he has nothing the matter with him, for he is quite well, only withering away for the sake of this princess.
‘What’s to be done with him?’ this lord asks himself. He sends the mother to question her son, that he may reveal to her what it is that has happened.