Do you remember last week when I told you about the House at the Three White Roses (aka the Rott building) and that there was a legend associated with the three sisters that had lived there? Well, here's the story in full...
Three Sisters
Once, long ago, three girls lived here, beautiful and innocent as white roses. Their parents died prematurely and left the sisters great wealth, but they had no idea how to use that wealth wisely, and soon became proud and naive. From morning to night they would sit in front of their looking glasses, combing their hair, trying on dresses and jewels and gossiping about young men and marriage. They all had the same dream, which was that three rich and noble grooms would arrive and carry them off to castles in foreign lands. And indeed, a handsome foreign prince appeared among the suitors and started to court the eldest sister. He talked for so long about his beautiful palaces over the sea, and the diamonds he would give her and the balls he would hold in her honor that the spellbound beauty agreed to leave with him. She packed her dresses ad jewels in heavy chests, her sisters paid her share of the guilders and off she went with her beau. The remaining two girls did not grieve long for their sister. Soon a new face appeared among the throngs of their suitors. A good-looking and wealthy duke from some far-off land began to court the middle sister. He sent her baskets of flowers, precious rings and necklaces, and after a dew weeks he took her off to his dukedom together with all of her property. The younger sister was left alone, but not for long, since a young English nobleman turned up in Prague on business and had eyes only for her. He told her about his estates full of parks and gardens, and how she would be a lady with her own chateau on an island in the middle of the sea. What girl could resist? The youngest girl packed up all the remaining property, the trunks were all stacked in a carriage and the driver cracked his whip. The house up on the Small Square was left silent and deserted.
Many years passed and no one heard any news of the sisters. Until one day a traveling journeyman arrived in Prague and recounted all he knew. Three rich grooms for three proud sisters! Not at all...they had all been the same man, a swindler who had only been interested in the girls' wealth. He had taken them off to foreign parts one after the other, robbed them there and left them in misery and poverty until one by one they fell sick and died. Pride comes before a fall and love is blind. Alas for three sisters who never heeded this wisdom...
