'I must go. I cannot stay. Pardon you? Who might not be proud of your
love!--Farewell!'
She turned to move away, but lingered a step from him, hastily touching
her bosom and either hand, as if to feel for a brooch or a ring. Then
she blushed, drew the silver arrow from the gathered gold-shot braids
above her neck, held it out to him, and was gone.
Farina clutched the treasure, and reeled into the street. Half a dozen
neighbours were grouped by the door.
'What 's the matter in Master Groschen's house now?' one asked, as he
plunged into the midst of them.
'Matter?' quoth the joy-drunken youth, catching at the word, and mused
off into raptures; 'There never was such happiness! 'Tis paradise
within, exile without. But what exile! A star ever in the heavens to
lighten the road and cheer the path of the banished one'; and he loosened
his vest and hugged the cold shaft on his breast.
'What are you talking and capering at, fellow?' exclaimed another: 'Can't
you answer about those shrieks, like a Christian, you that have just come
out of the house? Why, there's shrieking now! It 's a woman. Thousand
thunders! it sounds like the Frau Lisbeth's voice. What can be happening
to her?'
'Perhaps she's on fire,' was coolly suggested between two or three.
'Pity to see the old house burnt,' remarked one.
'House! The woman, man! the woman!'
'Ah!' replied the other, an ancient inhabitant of Cologne, shaking his
head, 'the house is oldest!'
Farina, now recovering his senses, heard shrieks that he recognized as
possible in the case of Aunt Lisbeth dreading the wickedness of an
opposing sex, and alarmed by the inrush of old Gottlieb's numerous
guests. To confirm him, she soon appeared, and hung herself halfway out
of one of the upper windows, calling desperately to St. Ursula for aid.
He thanked the old lady in his heart for giving him a pretext to enter
Paradise again; but before even love could speed him, Frau Lisbeth was
seized and dragged remorselessly out of sight, and he and the rosy room
darkened together.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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