CLEVER ALICE
There was once a man who had a daughter called Clever Alice. When she was grown up her father said, “We must get her married.”
“Yes,” said her mother; “if only some one would come who would have her.”
At last a young man named Hans came from a distance and wooed her; but he made one condition,—that Clever Alice should be as clever as she was said to be.
“Oh,” said her father, “she’s sharp enough.”
“Yes, indeed!” said her mother; “she can see the wind coming up the street, and hear the flies coughing.”
“Very well,” replied Hans; “but if she is not really clever, I won’t have her.”
When they were all sitting together at dinner the mother said, “Alice, go down into the cellar and draw some beer.”
So Clever Alice took the jug from the nail on the wall, and went into the cellar, tapping the lid up and down as she went to pass away the time. When she reached the cellar she fetched a chair and put it in front of the cask so that she need not stoop and hurt her back. Then she held the jug in her hand and turned the tap. While the beer was running, as she did not wish to be idle, she let her eyes wander all over the wall, looking first this way and then that. All at once she saw just above her head a pickax, which the masons had accidentally left there.
Then Clever Alice began to cry, saying, “If I marry Hans, and we have a child, and he grows up, and we send him into the cellar here to draw beer, then the pickax will fall on his head and kill him.”
So she sat and wept and cried with all her might over the misfortune which lay before her.
The people upstairs waited for the beer, but still Clever Alice did not come. At last her mother said to the maid, “Go down into the cellar and see why Clever Alice is staying so long.”
The maid went and found her sitting before the cask, crying bitterly.
“Alice, what are you crying about?” she asked.
“Alas!” she answered, “have I not reason to weep? If I marry Hans, and we have a child, and he grows up and has to draw beer here, perhaps that pickax will fall on his head and kill him.”
Then the maid said, “What a clever Alice we have!” and she, too, sat down by Alice and began to weep over this misfortune.
After a while, as the maid did not come back and the people upstairs were getting very thirsty, the husband said to the boy, “Go down cellar and see what has become of Alice and the maid.”
The boy went down, and there sat Alice and the maid weeping together. So he said, “What are you crying for?”
“Alas!” said Alice, “have I not reason to cry? If I marry Hans, and we have a child, and he grows up and has to draw beer here, that pickax will fall on his head and kill him.”
Then the boy said, “What a clever Alice we have!” and he sat down by Alice and began to howl lustily.
Upstairs they waited for the boy, but when he did not come the husband said, “Do go down cellar, wife, and see why Alice does not come back.”
The wife went downstairs and found the three in the midst of their lamentations. She asked the reason, and Alice told her, also, how her future child, when it grew up and was sent to draw beer, would be killed by the pickax which would fall down. Then the mother likewise exclaimed, “What a clever Alice we have!” and sat down and wept with them.
The husband upstairs waited a short time, but at last, as his wife did not return and his thirst grew greater, he said, “I must go down into the cellar myself and see what has become of Alice.”
But when he entered the cellar and found them all sitting there together crying, and heard the reason, how Alice’s child was the cause of it all, because she might possibly have a child, who might be killed by the pickax, if he should happen to be sitting beneath it drawing beer just at the moment when the pickax fell down, then he, too, said, “What a clever Alice we have!” and sat down and wept with them.
The bridegroom waited upstairs alone for a long time; then, as nobody came, he said: “They must be waiting downstairs for me. I will go down and see what they are about.” When he got downstairs there sat all five, weeping and lamenting in a heartrending way, each a little louder than the others.
“What misfortune can possibly have happened?” he asked.
“Alas! dear Hans,” said Alice, “if we marry and have a child, and he grows up, and we happen to send him into the cellar here to draw beer, then that pickax which has been hanging up there might kill him if it were to fall down upon his head; so have we not reason to weep?”
“Well,” said Hans, “more cleverness than that is not needed to keep house for me; and as you are such a clever Alice I will have you for my wife.” So he took her by the hand, led her upstairs with him, and married her.
When they had been married some time, Hans said, “Wife, I am going out to work and earn some money for us; do you go into the field and cut the corn, so that we may have some bread.”
“Yes, my dear Hans, I will do so.”
After Hans went away Alice cooked some nice broth for herself and took it into the field with her. When she got there she said to herself: “Now which shall I do? Shall I reap first, or eat first? I will eat first.”
So she emptied her bowl of broth, and when she was satisfied she said again: “Now which shall I do? Shall I reap first, or sleep first? I will sleep first.”
Then she lay down in the corn and fell asleep.
Meanwhile Hans had been at home some time, but Alice did not come.
“What a clever Alice she is!” said he; “she is so industrious that she does not even come home to eat.”
But as she still did not come, Hans went out to see how much she had reaped; but nothing was cut, and there lay Alice fast asleep in the corn. Hans hurried home and brought back a fowler’s net with little bells on it; this he hung about her, and still she did not wake. Then he ran home, shut the house door, and sat down to work.
At last, when it was quite dark, Clever Alice woke. When she stood up the net fell rattling about her, and the bells jingled at every step she took. This frightened her, and made her wonder whether she was really Clever Alice or not, and she said to herself, “Is it I, or is it not I?”
But she did not know how to answer, and stood for a long time in doubt. At last she thought, “I will go home and ask if it is I, or if it is not I; they will be sure to know.”
She ran to the door of her house, but it was locked. Then she knocked on the window, and cried, “Hans, is Alice at home?”
“Yes,” answered Hans, “she is at home.”
Then she was frightened and cried, “Alas! then it is not I,” and she ran to the next door; but when the people heard the jingling of the bells they would not open for her, and she could get in nowhere. So she ran away out of the village, and no one has ever seen her since.