"You won't throw me out, girls: rather listen to what I say. Which of you would like to know what you must do to enchant the young fellows so that even if every particle of them were full of falsity, they could not deceive you in their affection. Well, Susie: I see you're laughing at it. And you, Kati? Why, I saw your Joseph speaking to the bailiff's daughter at the fence: this spell would do him no harm."
All the grinning serving-maids, instead of rescuing Czipra from the woman, only assisted the latter in her siege. They surrounded her and even cut off Czipra's way, waiting curiously for what the gypsy would say.
"It is a harmless remedy, and costs nothing."
The gypsy woman drew nearer to Czipra.
"When at midnight the nightingale sings below your window, take notice on what branch it sat. Go out bare-footed, break down that branch, set it in a flower-pot, put it in your window, sprinkle it with water from your mouth: before the branch droops, your lover will return, and will never leave you again."
The girls laughed loudly at the gypsy woman's enchantment.
The woman held her hand out before Czipra in cringing supplication.
"Dear, beautiful young lady, scorn not to reward me with something for the blessing of God."
Czipra's pocket was always full of all kinds of small coins, of all values, according to the custom of those days—when one man had to be paid in coppers, another in silver. Czipra filled her hand and began to search among the mass for the smallest copper, a kreutzer,[76] as the correct alms for a beggar.
[76] One-half of a penny.