With their hot breath branding the back of Michel’s tender neck with whiskey-stained scorches, the men set out to amuse themselves, spurred toward greater heights of barbarity by the woeful whimpers of their victim, who remained bowed forward at the waist with his bare knees digging holes into the cold damp earth, along with his elbows. Michel’s golden hair fluttered wildly in the breeze as the robber positioned behind him performed a most extraordinary jig—or at least it seemed extraordinary to his unversed prey. It appeared to consist primarily of a repetitive thrusting of the haunches that eventually reached its ungainly conclusion with a convulsive tensing of the limbs and a guttural animal growl, intersecting with an ear-piercing squeal from Michel, who felt as if a pillar of fire had been shot through him. Several times during the course of these events a substance similar to that of clotted cream spurted forth from the lad’s loins, landing on the flaming logs with a telltale hiss and leaving him weak and confused, his ensuing shudders attracting much in the way of laughter and jeers from his thieving tormentors. Dawn was barely beginning to show her shy face by the time the gang of men had finished with him, and by then Michel Michelkleiner had forgotten all about his empty belly. For he had been filled in ways he had never before imagined.
When they no longer had any use for him or were too fatigued to continue with their fleshly plunderings, the highwaymen heaved their victim into an old cask, covering it over with a lid and securing it up top with a heavy log. It would be in here that Michel remained, bruised and smarting in places he never knew could smart, as he listened to the contented snores of the marauders who had misappropriated his person until he, too, fell into a slumber. Unlike the peaceful oblivion of the ruffians surrounding the fire, Michel’s sleep would be a troubled one. The unsavory business of the night had left the lad with a nagging sense of guilt. Although surely it had not been he who had done anything wrong?
By the time he awakened, Michel realized from the intense quality of light squeezing in through the gaps between the staves of the barrel that morning had turned to afternoon. The silence proclaimed that the highwaymen had evidently chosen to take their leave. Only the cheerful chirping of birds disturbed the stillness. Anxious to once again be on his way, Michel flung himself from side to side within his slat-ted prison. His slight shoulders butted painfully up against the walls confining him, the purple marks left on his flesh by the grasping fingers of his tormentors growing purpler in his struggle. The log keeping him penned inside the barrel was extremely heavy. Yet it was also round and, after a good deal of movement on his part, it rolled onto the ground with a defeated thud. Michel Michelkleiner had been freed.
The boisterous band of highwaymen was nowhere to be seen, the once-tenanted clearing now vacant of their sweating and groaning presences. Rather than relief, their young victim found himself overwhelmed by despair, especially when presented with the charred remains of the previous night’s fire—a night that had been a veritable festival of male savagery. Michel stood in the middle of the dead embers, hoping to elicit from them some heat. The robbers had left him without a thread to call his own, and the chill breeze of an early autumn evening had already begun to blow. It seemed that he had no other recourse but to continue on his way where, in the course of his travels, he might happen upon a good Christian with a mind toward lending him something with which to cover his bruised and battered flesh.
Hence a shivering Michel Michelkleiner tramped on bare feet through the woodland, convinced he would reach its terminus before nightfall. Having never made the journey, he did not know that this was an unusually deep woodland, requiring those of far heartier stature than himself a full two days to traverse. The birds of darkness had taken up their posts on the cone-laden branches, and they hooted at the naked lad as he passed, reminding him of his poignant lack of success in securing for himself a chunk of fire-grilled meat. By now, so many echoes could be heard inside his belly that Michel would not have refused even the tough flesh of an owl for his supper. Yet perhaps good fortune would very soon be his, for up ahead in the dusky gloom he discerned the outlines of a tiny hut.
Having recently learned that one must not rush willy-nilly into situations unknown to him, Michel approached with caution. The hut had been constructed out of packed mud that had turned ashy-gray with age, and its thatched roof boasted the slanting remains of a smoking chimney. Although not a particularly impressive structure, it gave the appearance of being habitable in a pinch. A square opening cut into the facade glowed invitingly from the flickering flame of an oil lantern within, indicating that someone in more dire straits than this young fortune-seeker had decided to seek shelter. It was through this rough-hewn window that the identities of the hut’s occupants came to be revealed.
For whom should Michel Michelkleiner see seated around a tottery old table but the very same gang of highwaymen that had robbed and then taken such brutal advantage of him? At the memory—a memory as raw and vivid as his wounds—a powerful quiver went through the lad’s unclothed body, and he moaned with remembered helplessness. Despite the chill night air, his flesh grew extremely hot, as if he were burning up with a terrible fever. He even needed to reach out a hand to steady himself lest he fall to his knees. For it had been on his knees that his tormentors had placed him.
The men in the hut appeared to be in the process of dividing up their spoils. Several stacks of gold coins had been arranged on the gouged-out surface of the table, the tallest of which teetered precariously before the group’s ringleader. Michel immediately recognized the silver coins his father had given him and of whose value he had been in great awe; they had been set to one side as though unworthy of being counted. The head robber wore looped around his thick neck the scarf Michel had carried in his bundle—the scarf he had been saving for the day he arrived in the city and, as a matter of convention, needed to spiff himself up. It was the same robber who not only had been the one to have broken him in, but had used him a second time as well. Michel would never forget that throaty laugh or the labored sounds of his breath, which had stunk powerfully of spirits. The sight of the man’s coarse fingers allocating out the coins to their appropriate stacks inspired a tortured sigh to escape from Michel’s parched lips, and he came close to giving himself away but for a sudden chorus of larcenous chortles that intervened to save him.
As these transitory inhabitants of the tiny hut continued with their unlawful pursuits, Michel Michelkleiner conceived of a plan. “I will steal in through the chimney and take these dastardly villains by surprise!” he said to himself. For in so doing, the thieving brigands might then be that much more the angrier at having had their important business interrupted, which should undoubtedly provoke them to do their worst. The mere thought of once again being so roughly manhandled by this uncouth lot of criminals was sufficient to make their erstwhile victim risk tackling the dangerously slanted rooftop to climb inside the smoking chimney. Unfortunately, Michel’s bare feet could locate nothing on which to secure themselves, and he found himself sliding down through the narrowly bricked gap, the soot from many winters coloring his fair flesh black. He landed in a heap of burning logs, letting out a roar as if the gates of Hell had been opened and all its residents let loose.
The highwaymen scrambled about in terror, failing to recognize the golden-haired lad who had just the night before been the source of so much raucous revelry around the cooking fire. To them he could only be a devil, with his wild eyes and his flesh charred black from the punishing fires of Hades. The head robber was convinced that this hellish being possessed a tail and intended to sting him with it, for something long and sharp stuck out from the demon’s skeletal body, the glistening red tip of which dripped with a deadly poison. Certain that they were all about to be dragged down into the underworld for their misdeeds, the men scurried off into the woodland, vowing never to rob or pillage again.
Michel Michelkleiner called out after them, but the highwaymen had run too far to hear. Crestfallen, he sat in the ringleader
’s chair before the table upon whose scarred surface the gold coins had been stacked with painstaking care. Perhaps if he waited long enough, the robbers might see fit to return, since surely they would wish to collect their ill-gotten pickings. To help pass the long hours of the night, the soot-covered lad counted out the shiny disks, discovering that he had a fortune at his fingertips. Although it could not make up for the absence of the villains who had manhandled him, it might be of considerable use when he reached the city.
Reclaiming his well-rummaged bundle that had been tossed carelessly into a corner, the newly prosperous Michel Michelkleiner donned what little remained of his garments—albeit not without first cleaning from his besmirched flesh the gritty black residue from the chimney. After a satisfying meal of bread and cheese left behind by the highwaymen, followed by a good night’s sleep, he set off in the direction of the city, his bundle jangling with gold. In the villages and towns through which he passed along the way, he purchased new items of clothing, and by the time he arrived at his destination, he looked quite the young gentleman.
The first thing Michel did was to avail himself of a small lager in the scruffiest tavern he could locate, his engaging presence immediately attracting the unruly attention of a gang of ruffians who had been making a contest out of who among them could consume the greatest volume of spirits in the least amount of time. Bets had been placed by the establishment’s equally unruly patrons, and with an impassioned quaver of voice, Michel placed a glittering gold coin in with the tarnished silver ones, stating his preference for the burly fellow who appeared to be the leader.
When the game had at last reached its conclusion and the well-attired newcomer scooped up his winnings from the table (for Michel had guessed correctly), the rowdy party led him into a dimly lit back room to celebrate with still more laughter and drink, which the blue-eyed and yellow-haired young stranger paid for and was eagerly encouraged to partake of…whereupon each man proceeded to pass around the squealing lad just as the lawless band of highwaymen had done at the cooking fire, with the burly fellow going first, and, indeed, closing up the circle by going last.
And that would be how Michel Michelkleiner came to find his good luck.
PUNISHED PRIDE
Classified by folklore scholars as a seduction/humiliation tale, the punishing of prideful princesses always takes center stage in the many versions of “Punished Pride.” Known from the shores of Ireland to the steppes of Russia, the tale even has echoes in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, which clearly indicates that the theme of prideful females who must be subdued has been the fodder for storytellers both peasant and nonpeasant alike.
Collected by the Brothers Grimm in the familiar form of “König Drosselbart” (King Thrushbeard), “Punished Pride” is believed to have arisen in Central Europe during the Middle Ages, with Italy being the likeliest candidate. However, its actual roots may go beyond those of the medieval, for elements in the story can be traced to pre-Christian days in the legend of the Teutonic god Wotan, who (like the folktale king) goes about in the guise of a beggar. In fact, the German name for Thrushbeard closely matches in meaning that of Wotan—that is, Horsebeard, thereby providing evidence of a Germanic influence upon the tale’s development.
As the Baroque flourished in Italy, Giambattista Basile would create his own version of the story. In “Pride Punished,” the haughty princess Cinziella—for whom no suitor is ever good enough—rejects a king, who later disguises himself so that he can take employment at the palace of the princess’s father. Although the first part of Basile’s tale parallels “The Swineherd,” the humiliation of the princess soon becomes a major theme as she finds herself greatly humbled by a pregnancy caused by a man thought to be the palace gardener. As Basile wrote, “The miserable Cinziella, agonized at what had befallen her, held it to be the punishment of Heaven for her former arrogance and pride, that she who had treated so many kings and princes as doormats should now be treated like the vilest slut.” Hence the princess is forced to flee her father’s kingdom with the man responsible for her condition, whereupon the disguised king inflicts upon the banished princess indignity after indignity. Only when he believes that she has finally learned her lesson does he reveal his true identity.
Although Basile would carry forth the sixteenth century’s tolerance for sexual frankness in folktales into the seventeenth century, in the years following his Pentamerone a change in attitudes began to take place—a change exemplified by an increasing shame and embarrassment about bodily functions, specifically those related to sexual matters. By the nineteenth century, references to sex were all but gone. In “King Thrushbeard” by the Grimms, not a word can be found of the princess becoming pregnant. Instead, her lessons of humiliation derive solely from the tasks she has been made to perform, rather than from any unsanctioned sexual behavior. It would appear that the men have acted in conspiracy against her as the princess’s father arranges for his daughter to take for a husband the first beggar who comes to the palace door—in this case, a common fiddler. In reality the fiddler is a rejected suitor, a king who, according to the mocking princess, has a chin that resembles a thrush’s beak. She makes no secret of her contempt as she tells her suitor that he is unworthy of even cleaning her shoes—a contempt that has on occasion been expressed with slightly more erotic overtones via her suitor’s apparent unworthiness to unstrap them. Having succeeded in winning her with his music, the royal fiddler subjects the princess to a life of poverty by sending her out to perform menial work in the palace of a king, which leads her into thievery.
The version of “Punished Pride” from which I received my inspiration flowed from the pen of the nineteenth-century writer Bozena Nemcová, who is considered one of the greatest names in Czech literature. Although her tale does not contain the sexual candor present in Basile, Nemcová was not shy in making the occasional subtle reference to passion. Indeed, her gardener /prince would find himself burning up with love for the princess—a burning that would be reciprocated in kind. However, no mention is made of the princess being forced into thievery or of her untimely and shameful pregnancy. Perhaps Nemcová had more sympathy for her fellow female, for it must be remembered that the other versions of “Punished Pride” were all composed by men.
Such sympathies aside, I have devised far more ingenious punishments for the prideful protagonist—punishments that, depending upon one’s point of view, may not really be punishments at all.
YOUNG MIROSLAV POSSESSED ALL THAT a czar could ever desire…except a czarina. Within days of announcing his decision to marry, the portraits of every imperial daughter from every neighboring empire began to arrive at the palace, each sender hoping against hope that hers would be the portrait that the bachelor Czar chose. Although the subjects of these painted works proved most agreeable to the eye, it was the portrait of the spoiled and prideful daughter of the Kaiser that finally captured Miroslav’s heart.
With the selection of a bride settled in his mind, the Czar summoned the most famous and sought-after painters in the land. He wished to commission each to paint his portrait—and the more portraits he had to pick from, the better. Attired in all his finery and with a wreath of easels surrounding him, Miroslav sat in thoughtful repose upon the throne that had once belonged to his father and to his father before him, his outward calm concealing the powerful stirrings he felt at the thought of the beautiful Krasomila, whom he hoped to entice with the gift of his portrait.
The master portraitists were most eager for their subject to decide which of their efforts he liked best, and each outdid the other in an effort to please, going to exaggerated measures to flatter the Czar in paint. Yet to the astonishment of all, Miroslav expressed a preference for the painting bearing him the least compliment, his intent being for Krasomila to find herself pleasantly surprised when she discovered her suitor to be substantially more appealing in the flesh than in paint. To further diminish the impact of his canvas image, the Czar ordered the work set into a m
assive gold frame studded with gems of every conceivable size and tincture. He then bade two of his finest-looking courtiers to deliver it to Krasomila, along with a request for her hand in marriage.
Miroslav waited anxiously as day after day went by without a word. When at last the messengers returned, they did not bring the answer the lovesick Czar expected to hear. Indeed, Krasomila had earned a reputation for spurning all suitors, no matter how eligible or handsome. “We were received most graciously by the Kaiser,” they began with clumsy tongues, hoping this might soften the sting of what next needed to be relayed. The Czar had been known to possess a mean temper when roused, and neither desired to be made the recipient of his brutal lash. “Yet when we presented the painting to his daughter, she scarcely gave it a glance. Truth be told,” they stuttered out haltingly, “she replied that the gentleman in the portrait was not fit to tie the laces of her shoes.” By now the two messengers were trembling in terror. Miroslav could have ordered their heads chopped from their necks for being the unfortunate bearers of such unpleasant tidings.
“The Kaiser pleaded for us to wait,” piped the older and more diplomatically experienced of the courtiers. “For it appeared that he wished to use his influence and impress upon his daughter how greatly she had erred in her judgment. Only we thought it prudent to take our leave, as we did not believe she would make a suitable czarina for His Imperial Majesty.” With the words that might end their lives irretrievably spoken, the men bowed low to the floor, expecting at any moment to feel the cold blade of an ax against the prickling flesh of their necks.
“You did very well,” replied Miroslav, his words resulting in a sigh of relief from the two anxious courtiers. “Perhaps I have underestimated the lady.”
In Sleeping Beauty's Bed Page 13
