Italian Folktales (99 page)

The king didn't even let her finish before he'd given orders for the landing stage. Hundreds of women began picking roses, and picked and picked, pulling off petals by the bushels, a thing never before seen.

When the landing stage of rose petals was ready, the fairies said to the princess, “Dress as a grand empress; we shall follow you as your ladies-in-waiting. When you are halfway across the landing stage, make believe you've been stuck by a thorn, and leave the rest to us.”

The princess set forth on the rose petals, dressed in the pink gown of an empress. The king eagerly awaited her at the other end, but he was forbidden by the princess to set foot on the landing stage. Halfway across, she screamed, “I'm dying! A thorn has stuck me!” And she pretended to faint. The fairies picked her up and carried her back to her palace. The king wanted to run to her assistance, but was checked by the princess's original order to stay off the landing stage.

From his palace he could see doctors and chemists coming and going, and in the end even a priest came with the viaticum. The king alone was not allowed to go to her. It was rumored that the thorn had caused her legs to swell and that she was fast sinking. Forty days later it was learned that the malady had subsided and the empress was improving. When
word went out that she was well, the king renewed his pleas for a meeting with her. So the fairies said to the girl, “Tell him you will visit him, but that you want a landing stage made of three inches of jasmine petals. And when you are halfway across, pretend to be stuck by another thorn.”

At once the king had all the jasmine blossoms in the kingdom picked and made into a thick carpet. When all was ready, she started out dressed as an empress. At the other end the king watched with his heart in his mouth, lest she be pricked anew. Halfway across, she screamed, “Ouch! I'm dying! A thorn has gone through my foot!” She swooned, and her ladies picked her up in their arms and carried her back to the palace. The king tore out his hair.

He sent his servants to her repeatedly, but there was no way to see her, much less cross the landing stage, and he knocked his head against the wall in desperation. He ended up sick in bed, but continued to send over messengers to find out how the empress was getting along. Finally he requested permission to come to her, sick as he was, since he wanted to ask for her hand in marriage.

“Tell him,” replied the princess, “that I would approach him only if I saw him laid out in a coffin.”

Receiving that answer, the king, who by now had lost his mind, had a coffin prepared with candles around it, and pretending to be dead had himself carried past the empress's windows. “Behold, Majesty,” they said to her, “our dead king.”

The maiden went to the balcony and said, “Phew! Down with you! You did all this for the sake of a woman?” And she spit on him.

Hearing that, the king recalled what he had done to the good maiden as black as pitch, who he then realized wasn't too different from the beautiful empress he had fallen in love with. All of a sudden it dawned on him that the black maiden and the empress were one and the same. You can imagine how upset he was! He almost changed from a false corpse into a real one.

But the three ladies-in-waiting arrived and informed him their mistress was expecting him. The king went in and asked her forgiveness. The royal chapel was immediately opened, and they got married. The king was anxious to keep the three fairies with them, but they bid the couple farewell and departed.

 

(
Palermo
)

154

Once upon a time in Palermo there was a certain Don Giovanni Misiranti, who at noon would dream of dinner and in the evening of supper, and at night he would dream of them both. One day when hunger was gnawing at his stomach, he went outside. “Oh, my luck!” he said to himself. “So you have left me!” Walking along, he spied a bean on the ground. He bent over and picked it up. Sitting down on a roadside post, he studied the bean and thought, What a fine bean! I'll plant it in a pot at once, and a bean plant will come up, with lots of nice pods. I'll dry the pods, then plant the beans in a basin and have many more pods . . . Between now and the next three years, I'll lease a garden, plant the beans, and no telling how many will come up then! The fourth year I'll rent a storehouse and become an important dealer . . . 

Meanwhile he had set off on foot again, and gone past St. Anthony's Gate. There was a whole row of stores, with a woman sitting before one of the entrances.

“My good woman, are these stores for rent?”

“Yes, sir,” she replied. “Who is interested?”

“My master,” he replied. “Whom does one discuss the matter with?”

“With the lady who lives upstairs.”

Don Giovanni Misiranti began thinking, and went off to see a friend of his.

“For St. John's sake,” he said to his friend, “you mustn't refuse me. Lend me one of your outfits for twenty-four hours.”

“Of course, my friend.” So Don Giovanni Misiranti got all dressed up, down to gloves and watch. Then he went to a barber to be shaved and, now spruce, passed back through St. Anthony's Gate. He had the bean in the pocket of his waistcoat and glanced at it every now and then on the sly. The woman was still sitting there, and he said, “My good woman, are you the one my servant asked about stores for rent?”

“Yes, sir; have you come to look at them? Follow me, and I'll take you to my master's wife.”

With his chest thrust out, Don Giovanni Misiranti followed the woman and introduced himself to the wife of the stores' owner. Seeing a gentleman before her with all the accessories—hat, gloves, and gold watch chain—the lady made a big to-do over him, and then they began discussing the matter at hand. Right in the middle of their conversation, a lovely
young lady entered the room. Wide-eyed, Don Giovanni Misiranti asked, “Is she related to you?”

“She's my daughter.”

“Single?”

“Yes, she's still single.”

“I'm happy to hear that. I too am single.”

Shortly afterward, he said, “Now that we've reached an agreement on the stores, I think we ought to come to one regarding the daughter. What does the lady think?”

“We shall see . . . ”

Her husband came in. Don Giovanni rose and bowed. “I am a landowner,” he said, “and I would like to rent your thirteen warehouses to fill with beans, peas, and all the rest of the harvest. Also, if I may, I'd like to ask for your daughter's hand in marriage.”

“Ah! What is your name?”

“I am Don Giovanni Misiranti, dealer in peas and beans alike.”

“Well, Don Giovanni, give me twenty-four hours to think it over, and you will have your answer.”

That night, mother took daughter aside and told her Don Giovanni Misiranti, dealer in peas and beans alike, wanted her for his wife. The daughter eagerly accepted.

The next day Don Giovanni went back to his friend and borrowed another outfit. The first thing he did was slip the bean into the pocket of the new waistcoat. He went to the residence of the warehouse owner and, receiving the answer, was in seventh heaven.

“I would like to marry as soon as possible, then,” he said, “since my many occupations don't give me any time to waste.”

“By all means, Don Giovanni,” replied the girl's parents. “Would it suit you to draw up the contract in a week's time?”

Throughout that period, Don Giovanni went on borrowing clothes, wearing something different every day, so that his parents-in-law-to-be took him for a very rich man indeed. They signed the contract, and the dowry consisted of two thousand gold crowns cash, sheets, and linen. Seeing so much money at his disposal, Don Giovanni felt himself a new man. He went on a shopping spree, buying presents for his bride and clothes for himself as well as all the trimmings to cut a fine figure.

A week after signing the contract, he got married in fine wedding clothes, with the bean in the pocket of the vest. The newlyweds gave parties and banquets, and Don Giovanni spent money right and left, as though he were a baron. His mother-in-law began to grow uneasy over this unending extravagance. “Don Giovanni,” she said, “when do you plan to take my daughter to see your fields? It's harvest time, you know.”

That upset Don Giovanni at first, and he could find no excuse. Racking his brains, he took out his good-luck piece, saying, “My luck, you must again help me out.”

He had a fine sedan chair readied for his wife and his mother-in-law and announced: “It is time to leave. We shall go toward Messina. I shall ride ahead on horseback, and you will come along behind.”

Don Giovanni left on horseback. When he saw a place he thought would serve his purpose, he called to a farmer in the field. “Here are twelve crowns for you. When you see a sedan chair come up with two ladies inside, if they ask you whose fields these are, you are to say, ‘They are owned by Don Giovanni Misiranti, dealer in peas and beans alike.'”

The sedan chair passed. “My good man, whose fine lands are these?”

“They are owned by Don Giovanni Misiranti, dealer in peas and beans alike.”

Mother and daughter smiled smugly and moved on.

At another estate the same thing happened. Don Giovanni rode on ahead, throwing out twelve-crown pieces; tucked in his pocket was the bean which made up his entire fortune.

When they got to where there was nothing more to see, Don Giovanni said to himself, “Now I'll find an inn and wait for them.” He looked around and saw an enormous palace, with a young lady in green standing at the window.

“Pss, pss!” said the young lady, motioning him inside.

Don Giovanni started up the grand staircase which gleamed so he was almost reluctant to walk on the steps, lest he muddy them. The young lady came forward to greet him and, with a sweeping gesture indicating all the lamps, carpets, and gold-sequined walls, asked, “Do you like the palace?”

“Can you imagine my not liking it?” answered Don Giovanni. “I would be happy here even as a corpse.”

“Look around, go up to the next floor.” And she showed him through all the rooms. Everywhere were jewels, precious stones, fine silks, things Don Giovanni had never even dreamed of.

“Do you see all this? It is yours. Take care of it. Here is the deed. It is a present from me. I am the bean you picked up and kept in your pocket. I shall take my leave now.”

Don Giovanni was about to fall at her feet and tell her how grateful he was, but the damsel in green had vanished under his very eyes. The handsome palace, though, remained, and it belonged to him, Don Giovanni Misiranti.

When his mother-in-law saw the palace, she exclaimed, “Ah, my daughter, what luck has come your way! Don Giovanni, dear son, to
think you had such a lovely palace and never breathed a word about it to us!”

“That's right! I wanted to surprise you . . . ” So he showed them around the palace, seeing it for the first time himself. He pointed out the jewels, the deed to the domain, and then a cellar full of gold and silver, with shovel planted in the midst; then they saw the stables with all the carriages, and finally the lackeys and all the household servants.

They wrote his father-in-law to sell everything and come and live with them at the palace, and Don Giovanni also sent a reward to the good woman he had found seated before the warehouses.

 

(
Palermo
)

155

A fisherman had a little boy who, seeing his father get into his boat, would say, “Take me with you, Father.”

“No,” replied the fisherman, “a storm might come up.”

And if the sea and weather were calm, the man would say, “No, there's danger of sharks.”

Or if it wasn't the season for sharks: “No, the boat might sink.”

He thus held off for nine years, after which he could object no more: he had to carry his son along to fish in the open sea.

On the open sea the fisherman lowered his nets, while the boy dropped a fishing line. The fisherman pulled up the net, which contained nothing but a minnow; the boy pulled up his line, and hooked to it was an enormous fish. “This, Father, I will take to the king in person.” They went back in, the boy donned his Sunday best, slipped the fish into a basket lined with green seaweed, and went off to the king.

At the sight of the fish, the king clacked his tongue. “Come here!” he called to a servant. “Give this little fisherman fifty crowns!” And he asked the boy, “What is your name?”

“I am Pidduzzu, Majesty,” replied the little fisherman.

“Well, Pidduzzu, would you like to remain here at the royal palace?”

“Would I!” answered the boy.

So, with his father's approval, Pidduzzu was reared at the palace. He was dressed in fine silk, and had many teachers and professors. He received his education, grew up, and was no longer called Pidduzzu, but “the knight Don Pidduzzu.”

Also growing up at the palace at the same time was the king's daughter, Pippina, who loved Pidduzzu better than life itself. When she was seventeen, a king's son showed up to ask for her hand in marriage. Her father, who favored the match, tried to persuade her to marry him. But Pippina was in love with Pidduzzu and informed her father she would either wed Pidduzzu or never marry at all. The king flew off the handle and called in Pidduzzu. “My daughter has lost her head over you, and that cannot be tolerated: you will have to leave the palace.”

“Majesty,” replied Don Pidduzzu, “are you turning me out like that?”

“It displeases me to do so,” said the king, “for you were like a son to me. But have no fear, you will continue to enjoy my protection.” So Don Pidduzzu went out into the world, while the princess was shut up in a convent—St. Catherine's, of all places!

Don Pidduzzu took lodgings at an inn. His window overlooked an alley, as did a small window of Pippina's convent. She appeared at the window and, the minute they saw each other, they began comforting one another with gestures and words. Pippina had found a book of magic hidden in her cell by a nun-turned-sorceress, and she passed it down to Don Pidduzzu from her window.