Meanwhile the lovers were left to themselves. They had quite enough to tell each other. First, Valentine made Michal tell him of all the horrors she had gone through, and what desperate suffering she had endured, and then he related to her the many contrarieties which had befallen himself. Of course, too, they did not forget to richly indemnify each other for their past woes by a liberal exchange of caresses. In particular, when Valentine recounted the history of Jigerdilla, Michal did not grudge him an ample compensation for the kisses which, for her sake, he had refused the Turkish lady. At the same time Valentine treated his beloved as his bride indeed, but not as his affianced wife.
At the first cockcrow the witches ceased to dance. Simplex they sent into the loft to sleep of his fatigue. The kopanitschar's wife set about preparing breakfast; but Pirka went into the room of the lovers to ask them what they had been dreaming about. Then she sent Valentine out, but whispered in his ear as she passed, that he might peep through the window if he liked, and then she helped Michal on with the cornflower-blue dress. After that she called the young man in again.
Valentine was enchanted at the sight of the beautiful lady, and protested that if she had looked in the first dress like a bride, she looked in the second one like a saint on an altar screen. Pirka thereupon pulled a very wry face, for she did not like to hear tell of saints and altars. So she drove Valentine out again, and bade him go wake his friend who had been dozing all night, and yet was as heavy as ever. While Valentine was wrangling in the loft with Simplex, who swore by hook and by crook that he had been trumpeting all night long for the benefit of the witches, and had scarcely had more than forty winks, Pirka took off Michal's blue dress which made her look like a saint, and arrayed her in the purple one. When Valentine saw her in this he declared that she now looked just like a queen.
But the witches tried to persuade Simplex that he had only dreamt that he had been playing all night, and that it was not from overmuch blowing of trumpets but from excessive mastication at supper the night before, that his jaws were so sore.
The lovers, too, protested that they had heard nothing of the whole entertainment. They had been so much occupied with each other that they had been unconscious of all else. They had not only not heard the trumpet of Simplex, they had not even heard the clarion of the Archangel Uriel who (according to the ancient formula: "Michal on my right, Gabriel on my left, Raphael behind me, Israel before me, Uriel above my head") flies above the head of each one of us, and blows his clarion whenever we are about to plunge into some dreadful danger. Well for us if we heed the warning!
But the lovers had heard nothing.
When Annie served the breakfast (goat's milk, cheese, and brandy mixed with honey and sugar), Valentine's spirits rose so high that he vowed over again what he had already vowed the night before, viz.: that if anyone tore away his Michal from him, he would turn highwayman and gather a robber band around him.
But women have, generally speaking, more common sense in the broad light of day than they have at dead of night; so Michal now said that it need not come to that. Valentine must take her back to her father's house. There she would bring a divorce suit against her husband on the plea that he had married her in a wrong name and under false pretenses, and that his marriage with her was consequently invalid. As soon then as the marriage was dissolved, Valentine must come forward and woo her, when she certainly would not send him away with a flea in his ear.
At this Barbara Pirka burst into a peal of laughter.
"Trust to parsons, and you'll soon see what a pretty dance they'll lead you! The parsons have many creases in their surplices, and they shake a fresh ordinance out of every crease. Do what you say, by all means! Bring your action against Henry Vihodar, formerly clerk in holy orders, and now headsman, and you'll find that justice is on the side of the longest purse. It is true that the vihodar's house is merrily burning, but his treasures in the basement of the tower cannot be burnt, and he will be a very rich man. He'll confront you with a dozen witnesses who will testify that the Keszmár professor knew very well what his son-in-law's trade was. He will manufacture forged letters with false seals, and what will be the end of it all? Why, Squire Valentine will be found guilty of abduction and put out of the way. No, no! don't go to law. You'll get no good by it. Besides, I've a much better plan."