Hearsay and Gypsies

“Yes it is that!” Deborah said, “It is a gypsy trick to try to pretend there is someone to distrust in anyone who dares not to show what they're about when there's a competence in that someone to seem satisfied with them not knowing!”

Sophie looked at her and answered: “I thought gypsy tricks were about trying fool you into saying to yourself that there's no hidden danger. I mean - if there's anything to the gypsies - it's that they keep their thefts hidden that way!”

“I mean that they pretend that in order to have it there either are no dangers to disguise, or else they have the right to accuse that person! In such circumstances they often manage either to steal or to put blame on such a person. Often they even do both things at once!”

“It is not a gypsy cunning in the first place to be able to seem real about circumstances that are about the dangers of not knowing! It is not they who would be able to pretend as though there were not any reasons to believe oneself to have nothing to do with whomever they could perhaps otherwise distrust in such a way!”

“I find it in you not to admit that she who took your money wasn't all about seeming innocent. Instead she was about trying to feel innocent by your comparison!”

Sophie looked thoughtful. “I wasn't sure about her! It's not quite certain to me, even, if that lady was a gypsy! She seemed to act the way one could expect from one, I think. But since she was not quite dark-skinned and not dressed as a gypsy woman, she still seems possible as something else. But, true, that aside, I could be into a predicament of that they are sly that way, and that it's they who trick people into seeming guilty somehow.”

Now Deborah looked thoughtful. “I presume it's the gypsies who aren't very fond of being the way one could expect them to be! But still there seems to me to be, in their culture or something, that kind of a strategy!”

“Of pretending another person is guilty by having him or her seem to hide whatever he or she didn't think about emphasizing? Yeah! Perhaps it's really something they did for survival way back when they started wondering around!”

“Yes! Exactly that! It's about that they evilly pretend we should watch out for ourselves and thereby catch us of guard, sometimes. When we are, they skillfully steal something form ya!”

“Debbie, it's not a certainty that they would pertain to that still in this day and age, except to the extent they still steal from us. I mean they aren't necessarily the ones using that trick nowadays - even if it is, perhaps they who invented it!”

“I agree! But they have stolen from us, or at least it's probably they, that is - and once I'm sure it was a gypsy lady who did pick-pocket me, because she seemed to be the one to pretend I was pretending as if nothing about the ability I might have to pick a boyfriend among her people1 She was evilly vindictive about it, probably! I can't but know that it was she who stole my wallet just to show me that they were in charge of each other, and not I, some stranger, who was. ...”

“You mean she really despised you that much for wanting a boyfriend among her people!?”

“I guess so. I'm not sure about the way she thought about me, nor my fellow on the side! I presume she happened to feel I was insolent, and I can feel that some others I know would also have avenged it!”

“Then perhaps you would be the one to blame for it!”

“Even so I don't feel they have the right to retaliate that easily! I mean I was just checking them out, those two gypsy men, who seemed rather handsome, the two of them! Also, I was trying to flatter them! Even so she retaliated as if there was something wrong with that I even looked at her people!”

“Okay, Deb! I agree that perhaps there's something to what you've just told me! But I still feel that you have to retaliate a little less against those people! I mean that you're being superficial if they are to be defined as crooked all the time just because of that once!”

“It's not safe at all to presume it was only that one time! I feel, thereby - of course, isn't it?! - that there's not at all retaliation in just saying to myself that they aren't always trustworthy!”

Sophie looked thoughtful again. “Okay. I'll help you retaliate that, but on one condition! It isn't me that they should be into seeing as the one who is after their skins in this! It's you who should obviously be the one to stick her neck out, if anyone, that is!”

Debbie sighed. “Of course, Sophie! Yeas, of course I'll be the one to take most of their hatred for this! I already feel their sympathy couldn't be there, so yes, I'm ready to take that!”

After two weeks, the two women had, with some help from both of their families, spread the word in their neighbourhood that gypsies were evil people. This had seemed like nonsense to some, but as old news to others. But they had fended for their words by spreading that they also were pretending others were guilty and that they thereby got away with being it themselves. This the gypsies were now beginning to retaliate against them for.

Firstly, it said in a newspaper that the two women, and both of their families, seemingly, it said, were prejudice blackmailers, who stopped at nothing for seeming insulted by people who were already outcasts. Secondly it said that they were trying to warn people about something that actually didn't exist, namely that gypsies were, supposedly, more keen than others on pretending those who don't know their hiding something should be still viewed as wanting to hide it. The article sort of disproved the notion of that they did so by referring to a situation where gypsies had been harassed by several people without being able to defend themselves. it said that they could have done so by pretending one of them was hiding that he was cunning at ruling them all, and that they were quite obviously not keen enough to do so.

The two women and their families defended themselves in by having it that they, the gypsies wouldn't even recognize such a possibility had they not been more keen on doing that than most people. They also stated that those who had attacked them probably simply had guarded themselves against such stuff, well enough for not even the gypsies to be able to pull that trick against them. It was not a certainty, they had it, that the gypsies wouldn't intimidate them so much that they weren't able to be aware of their own defences. This they wrote in an a letter to the editor of a rivaling newspaper, where they also wrote that the gypsies had “obviously been guilty of very much pretension about their issue! This is also what they usually do!” they stated, and continued: “Thereby such people cannot really be trusted about anything!” they concluded.

“But this is not our opinion!” the editors of that newspaper wrote after the column.

“I from here on will not ever try to seem to be responsible about this kinds of assertions!” Debbie said after reading it. “From here on, we shall not ever again pretend as if something about those damned gypsies! Instead, I will from here on fake that they are too innocent to believe! That way, perhaps, the public will claim hearsay against them and thereby make it self-evident that they pertain to being evil in the sense that they don't pertain to actual society!”

Sophie looked at her and answered: “How come you then feel that they are that guilty? I mean that they seem innocent in that you call it hearsay, those rumors you want to use against them!”

“I feel that it's hearsay that should be enough said about them! Thereby, I will feel superior by just pointing at them as the ones with whom hearsay is enough!”

“I can't presume you even know what you're dealing with! When I hear you say hearsay is the only way to define those people, then it seems to me that they haven't got any facade at all, since they are harassed by you so easily!”

“I can't believe my ears! But I will from now on consider you not to be my friend and thereby not one to be trusted much! I presume you will from now on also not view me as that friend you could be talking to at points!”

“I agree!” she answered, and with that they ended their friendship.