Saturday, 28 May 2022

Good Reading: "Alys and Her Dog" by Ludwig Bechstein (translated into English)

 

A poor labourer had two children, a son named Lutz and a daughter named Alys. Both children were very young when the father died, and left in stark poverty. They would have died if it had not been for the help of good neighbours.

The little girl grew up and became so pretty that there was no one as beautiful for many miles around. Her brother Lutz became servant to a rich young count. Before the brother parted from his sister he had her portrait painted by a friend; he wanted it to remember her by.

The count was well pleased with Lutz's manners, but he could not but wonder at his habit of taking a portrait from his bosom and gaze lovingly at it time and again. When Lutz was questioned about it, he became silent and reserved, but at last he showed the portrait to the count and told him it was of his sister.

"Is your sister as beautiful as this?" asked the count in surprise. "If so, she is well fit to be a nobleman's wife!"

"She is even better," answered Lutz.

The count was charmed and secretly sent his nurse to the spot where Alys lived, to bring her to his castle. The nurse went in a carriage drawn by four horses to the house of the girl's master and told her that her brother Lutz sent his love and wanted her to come to the castle of the count.

Alys was much pleased at this chance of seeing her brother and was soon ready for the journey, taking with her a little dog named "Shaker". She had once saved the dog from drowning and was very fond of it.

But the nurse had got a wicked plan. While they were driving by the steep bank of a deep river, she drew Alys's attention to the silvery fishes that swam in the water. Then, when Alys leant out of the carriage to watch the the fishes, the nurse gave her a push so that she fell down the slope and into the river. The singing coachman did not hear a thing, but drove on without known had happened.

At a certain spot the nurse had bidden her old daughter to get into the carriage while the coachman gave his horses some water. She did, and her mother then gave her a thick veil that completely hid her features, and instructed her to tell the count that she had made a vow not to take off the veil for half a year.

The veiled woman was received politely at the castle by the count himself. He urged her to uncover her face, but she refused so long that he gave way. He also had so much trust in what his servant Lutz had said that he offered to marry the veiled lady. A priest was summoned at once, and then they were married.

After the wedding the newly made countess no longer refused to raise her veil, and the count was astonished to see a face that was long past its bloom. All in a rage he had Lutz thrown into jail, even though Lutz cried the woman was not his sister at all, while he clutched the portrait of his sister so as not to lose it.

One night soon afterwards, a servant of the count, who slept in the count's waiting room, had a strange dream. He saw a white figure standing at the foot of his bed and rattling a chain on its arm and said, in soft tones, "Shaker, Shaker!"

The dog had survived the carriage ride. Now he came from under the servant's bed and said to the figure, "Alas, my dearest!"

"Where is my brother?" asked the figure.

"He is chained in prison," answered the dog.

"Where is my picture?" was the second question.

"In the prison with him," said the dog.

The figure said; "Two more times I will come; and if I am not saved then, I will not come back."

At once the figure disappeared like a cloud.

The servant imagined that it was all a dream, and said nothing about it to anyone. But the next night the same thing happened at his bedside again. The figure, rattling its chain, said it would come once more, but not again.

Now the servant told it all to the count. The count could not find out what it meant. Therefore he placed himself behind the chamber-door around midnight. Soon the figure appeared and talked with the dog as before. But when the figure said "Prison", the count suddenly opened the door and snatched at the figure. His hand drew away the chain from the figure's arms.

The ghostly figure then turned into a beautiful young woman, and looked like the picture that Lutz was so fond of. The count entreated her to explain if she could. Alys then told how the old nurse had thrown her into the river. There she had fallen among nixes who had taken her to their underground palace. They strove to make her a nix there, but she had been permitted to visit the count's chamber three times, and if in that time her chains were broken, she would not have to return and get nixed.

The count rejoiced and marvelled at this tale. He lost no time in restoring Lutz to his former position, and the old nurse and her daughter were cast into jail instead.

Alys married the count, and her portrait was hung up on the wall.

At the wedding, Alys' dog Shaker suddenly turned into a beautiful young lady. She was set free from a spell through Alys' love. Lutz married the lady, for he liked what he saw. In the end the lady and Lutz and his countess sister and her count, lived happily close by each other.

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