“If you will give me your promise I will go away at once.” And the young girl says “Yes,” in order to make him go away. Then he goes away.
The next day he goes to a priest and tells him what has taken place, and gives him forty thousand francs, and tells him to build a fine house with it, and to furnish it, and if anything more is wanting he will pay it at his next voyage. The young girl, too, goes to the priest, for before this she had been helped and comforted by him. The priest tells her how the captain had given him forty thousand francs for her to build a fine house with, and for her to make use of for all she wanted. The priest said that he would undertake building the house, and she said that she would see to all that was wanting for herself.
The captain goes off, and has as successful a voyage as could be made—he had nothing but fair weather. He brought back plenty of money, and they were married soon after his arrival. His mother and his brothers and sister were at the wedding. After some time the captain wished to go and make another voyage. He left his fine house to take his wife to his mother’s house, and he said to her:
“My wife will be better with you than all alone. You will have her always dressed as becomes her position, and keep a good table for her, and take good care of her.”
The husband went to sea. He often wrote to his wife; but what do the captain’s mother and her daughter do after he is gone? They take away from this lady all her pretty dresses, and make her put on old ones, and wooden shoes too with straw inside, and send her off to keep the geese with a bit of bread, telling her that she must bring home a load of small wood (to light the fire with), and that she must keep spinning while she is watching the geese. This poor young girl says nothing. She goes off with her flock of geese. When night comes she returns with four skeins of thread spun and a load of small wood. Every day she does the same. They do not even tell her that her husband has written to her.
The captain has a fine voyage. He had some fears about his mother and his sister, and he thought to himself that it would be best to come home secretly, in silence, and see how they were treating his wife. He comes then as a foreigner, in the dress of a captain. He says that he comes from a distance, and that he wishes to pass a week in their house. The mother and the daughter receive him very well. They tell him to choose his own room, and he chooses his own wedding-chamber. At nightfall the geese come home, cackling, cackling, and with them the young girl. This gentleman tells them that it is his habit to have some young girl with him when he travels like that, and asks them if they can get him one. They tell him “Yes,” that there would be none more glad than this young girl, and that they will give her to him. They go and tell it to the goose girl.
She says that certainly she will not go. They say to her that he has chests full of gold, and that they would willingly go, but that he has chosen her; and they push her by force into the room. The gentleman orders an excellent supper, and says that he has the habit of supping well. The goose girl stands sadly before the table. She would not eat anything; the gentleman presses her, and she kept saying that she was not hungry—that she had eaten as much as she usually did. He asks her:
“Where have you eaten? and what have you eaten?”
“A piece of bread that I took with me in the morning.”
He tells her again to eat these good things. She says that she does not want anything, and that the greatest pleasure he can give her is to let her go off to her geese. The gentleman says to her: