The Broken Jug

The story takes place in Huisum, a provincial Dutch village near Utrecht, in the eighteenth century. Licht, the clerk of the village court, arrives in the courtroom one morning to prepare for the day's proceedings. He discovers Adam, the village judge, in a generally disreputable state, nursing a badly lacerated face and an injured leg, with a highly questionable explanation involving an altercation with a clothesline and a goat. Light tells Adam to expect the imminent arrival of Walter, the district justice from Utrecht, who is on a tour of inspection of the courts in his jurisdiction. Alarmed, Adam tries to get everything in order, and orders his maids to fetch his wig. Much to his chagrin, they report that he had returned home without it late the previous night.

District Judge Walter arrives, eager to review the day's proceedings. The first case to be heard involves the angry Marthe Rull, carrying the fragments of a broken jug. She is joined by her distraught daughter Eve, the farmer Veit Tümpel and his furious son Ruprecht. Marthe reports that at eleven o'clock the previous evening she heard loud male voices coming from Eve's bedroom; she ran in to discover Eve and her fiancé Ruprecht together, with the shards of the broken jug on the floor. Marthe expects Ruprecht to pay for the damages.

Ruprecht claims that, suspicious that his fiancée was entertaining a male visitor, he had broken down Eve's door. After hearing the jug break into pieces, Ruprecht burst in just in time to hear the jug smashing into pieces and see a man attempt to escape through the window. Before the unknown intruder had crashed to the ground outside, Ruprecht had managed to strike him with the door handle. For her part, Eve says nothing about the night's events, other than to swear that Ruprecht didn't break the jug. Veit Tümpel's sister arrives, holding a wig she found in the trellis outside Marthe's house. Judge Walter, who has largely hidden his suspicions about the village judge, now clearly realizes that Adam is hiding something. When Adam frantically demands that Ruprecht be imprisoned, Eve overcomes her secret mortification and finally speaks up: Judge Adam himself broke the jug during an attempted seduction. Exposed in his own courtroom as the perpetrator of the crime on trial, Adam quickly flees.

Ruprecht begs Eve's forgiveness, while Marthe, still seeking compensation for the jug, plans to pursue her case against Adam in Judge Walter's court the following week. The characters sing the moral of the story: "None shall play the judge's part if he be not of purest heart."

Der Zwerg

It is the 18th birthday of Donna Clara, the Spanish Infanta. Don Estoban, the court chamberlain, supervises as the servants prepare a sumptuous birthday party. The Infanta's favorite maid, Ghita, marvels at the splendor of the decorations and gifts. The beautiful Infanta and her playmates are heard dancing and playing in the garden, but soon arrive to marvel at her birthday gifts, cheekily disturbing the chamberlain and the maids as they work. Don Estoban implores the girl to wait for the ceremony. Left at last in peace, Don Estoban describes some of the fabulous gifts to the maids. The most wonderful of them all, he says, is also the most repulsive, for the Sultan has sent the Infanta a hideously misshapen dwarf. The dwarf, Don Estoban explains, is completely unaware of his ugliness for he has never seen himself in a mirror; he thinks he is a handsome knight. The maids hurry to cover the mirrors before the gift ceremony begins. After the Infanta and her retinue have taken their places for the celebration, the dwarf is brought in. The ladies laugh with merriment at the strange spectacle before them. Gazing at the Infanta's beauty, the dwarf is unable to sing the merry song requested of him. Instead he sings an impassioned song of lovesickness. The girls laugh with delight at the idea that the hideous dwarf wants to be loved. Smiling sweetly, the Infanta tells the dwarf that he may choose any of the ladies in the court as a wife, and the dwarf tells her that the only one he could love is the Infanta herself. The Infanta sends her guests away, and listens intently as the dwarf improvises a story about rescuing her from a dragon. She tells him that if he wants to love her, he must be a valiant knight; he must also be very handsome, for beauty is sacred to her. She sends him ahead into the ballroom to await their first dance. The maids observe the scene in the ballroom, watching as the Infanta presents the dwarf with a white rose in front of the assembled guests. Lost in rapture, the dwarf returns. Ghita tries unsuccessfully to bring the dwarf back to reality. His beautiful dream finally collapses when he inadvertently uncovers a mirror and suddenly finds himself face to face with his reflection. When the Infanta returns, he begs her to tell him that he is handsome and that she loves him. The Infanta tears herself away from him, saying "I want to dance and play with you, but I can only love a man, and you are an animal." The dwarf falls dying at her feet, as the Infanta hurries back into the ballroom to dance.