Seldwyla Folks: Three Singular Tales

by Gottfried Keller

Now the town of Seldwyla counted as a fit penalty for misdeeds which according to their notions were reckoned among the lighter ones and which consequently required no severe treatment, not imprisonment proper but rather the awarding of the culprits to persons that became responsible for their further conduct. In the custody of such persons the culprits remained during the length of the sentence, and these custodians were held to employ them suitably and to feed and shelter them adequately. This mode of punishment was used most often with women or youthful persons. Thus, then, Kuengolt, too, was taken to one of the chambers of the town hall, and there she was to be auctioned off, at least her services and keep. And before that ceremony she had to submit to being publicly exhibited there.

The forester, whose sunny humor had altogether disappeared with these trials, said sighing to Dietegen that it was a hard thing for him to go to the town hall and watch there in behalf of his daughter, but somebody surely must be there of her family during these bitter hours.

Then Dietegen said: "I will go in your stead; that is, if I am good enough for it in your opinion."

His patron shook hands with him. "Yes, do it!" he said, "and I will thank you for it."

So Dietegen went where some of the councilmen were seated and a few persons willing to take charge of the prisoner. He had girded his sword around his loins, and had a manly and rugged air about him.

And when Kuengolt was led inside, white as chalk and deeply chagrined, and was to stand in front of the table, he swiftly pulled up a chair and made her sit down in it, he placing himself behind and putting his hand on the back of it. She had looked up at him surprised, and now sent him a glance fraught with a painful smile. But he apparently paid no heed looking straight on over her head, severe of mien.

The first who made a bid for her custody was the town piper, a drunkard, who had been sent by his poor wife in order to help increase their receipts a bit. This, she calculated, was all the more to be expected because Kuengolt would probably receive from her home all sorts of good things to eat, and these, she considered, they would secure wholly or in part.

"Do you want to go to the town piper's house?" Dietegen curtly asked the girl. After attentively regarding the red-nosed and half-drunken fellow, she said: "No." And the piper, with a blissful smile, remarked laughing: "Good, that suits me too," and toddled off on shaking legs.

Next an old furrier and capmaker made a bid, since he thought he could utilize Kuengolt very handily in sewing and making a goodly profit out of her services. But this man had a large sore on his thigh, and this he was greasing and plastering with salve all day long, and also a growth the size of a chicken's egg on the top of his pate, so that Kuengolt had already been afraid of him when she passed his shop as a child going to school. When, therefore, Dietegen put the query to her whether she was willing to go to his house, and the girl decidedly negatived that, the man went off loudly venting his spleen. He grumbled and growled like a bear whose honeycomb has been snatched away.

Now a money changer stepped up, one who was notorious both for his greed and usurious avarice and for his lewdness. But scarcely had that one leveled his red eyes upon her, and opened his wry mouth for a bid, when Dietegen motioned him off with a threatening gesture, even without asking the terrified girl herself.