Seldwyla Folks: Three Singular TalesKeller, Gottfried
General
Seldwyla Folks: Three Singular Tales
Keller, Gottfried
Switzerland -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
But Kuengolt was tormented by a craving to see all these young men
subject to her will and under the complete influence of her charms. She
exclaimed that she herself wished to wait upon her guests, and hastened
into the house to get more wine. There she quickly and surreptitiously
found her way into Violande's chamber, where she rummaged in her
clothes press. In an hour of mutual confidences Violande had shown her
a small phial and told her that this contained a philtre, or love
potion, called "Follow Me." Whoever should drink its contents when
served by the hand of a woman, would inevitably become her slave and
victim, being bound to follow her even to death's door. True, Violande
had added, there was not contained in that potion any of the strong and
dangerous poison denominated Hippomanes, brewed from the liquor
obtained from the frontal excrescence of a first-born foal, but rather
it came from the small bones of a green frog that had been placed upon
an ants' nest and cleanly scraped and gnawed off by these insects,
until ready for occult use. But all the same, Violande had stated, this
preparation was potent enough to turn the heads of a half dozen of
obstreperous men. She herself, Violande said, had obtained the philtre
from a nun whose whilom lover had succumbed to the pest before the
philtre had had time to work, so that she, the nun, had resigned
herself to a convent life, and now Violande had possession of this
sovereign remedy without knowing exactly what to do with it. For she
did not dare to throw it away for fear of the unknown consequences.
This phial Kuengolt now found after some search, and poured its
contents into the jug of wine she carried, and with a beating heart she
hastened outside to her guests. She bade the youths all quaff their
drink inasmuch as she would offer to them a new and sweet spice wine,
and when serving out the contents of the jug she knew how to contrive
matters in such wise that not a drop of the fluid remained. To
accomplish this she had first evenly distributed wine into all the
goblets, and afterwards poured something more into each man's, in every
instance sending an alluring glance into the soul of every swain, so
that the sorcery should have its full effect, as she thought.
But indeed the magical workings of the philtre really consisted in
these impartially and enticingly subdivided glances of her roguish eye,
so that the youths all vied, blind and selfish with passion, to gain
her sole favor, as will always happen when a goal striven for by all in
common lies temptingly there for the boldest and luckiest to achieve.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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