German fiction -- Translations into English; Short stories, German -- Translations into English
She led him into his turret hermitage; she saw to his wound, which was
indeed but slight, and already disposed to heal; she furnished him with
all that he could need for refreshment, and then seeing that his eyes
were growing heavy she left him.
She herself, however, did not instantly return to Garcinde; she still
lingered among the roses, made a nosegay, pulled it to pieces again,
and when at last she returned to the castle, her eyes were red, and she
washed them long with cold water that no one should observe it.
Geoffroy only slept a few hours: then he awoke a new man, with brow
cool, thanks to Aigleta's salve, and heart on fire, thanks to the
mysterious hope-encouraging words of his cousin. Like a wanderer on
whom the fairy of the woods has bestowed the wishing-rod, by which at
the hour of midnight he may find and possess himself of a treasure, and
who dreams away the intervening time, so the youth sat hour after hour,
gazing only at the sunbeam which slowly moved along the stone floor,
and listening only to the song of the birds around his turret. No one
came to disturb him: the servants lay yawning in shady corners of the
court, the horses were stamping in the stable to shake off the flies;
both girls had locked themselves up in their castle chamber, and did
not appear all day. Once only through his narrow window did he catch
sight of Sir Hugo, who stepped out on the balcony before his chamber,
and looked down into the castle moat as though considering whether it
would not be better for him to dash himself to pieces there. His hair
and beard had become white as snow, his face was worn to a shadow; soon
he vanished again like a restless ghost. And now the sun went down, and
the moon rose above the wood, and silvered the rose-garden around
Geoffrey's tower. The birds were silent, but the bull-frogs in the moat
seemed to croak the louder, and in the distance a nightingale's song
was heard. It was so light in the tower that the youth could read every
letter in his parchment book, but he knew not what he was reading.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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