To this, however, the woman we are following has not yet come. But already she is puffed up with him, and with her new and lofty lot. The earth has ceased to bear her. Plump and comely in these better days, she goes down the street with head upright, and merciless in her scorn. She is feared, hated, admired. In look and bearing our village lady says, “I ought to be the great lady herself. And what does she up yonder, the shameless sluggard, amidst all those men, in the absence of her lord?” And now the rivalry is set on foot. The village, while it loathes her, is proud thereat. “If the lady of the castle is a baroness, our woman is a queen; and more than a queen,--we dare not say what.” Her beauty is a dreadful, a fantastic beauty, killing in its pride and pain. The Demon himself is in her eyes. * * * * * He has her and yet has her not. She is still _herself_, and preserves _herself_. She belongs neither to the Demon nor to God. The Demon may certainly invade her, may encompass her like a fine atmosphere. And yet he has gained nothing at all; for he has no will thereto. She is _possessed_, _bedevilled_, and she does not belong to the Devil. Sometimes he uses her with dreadful cruelty, and yet gains nothing thereby. He places a coal of fire on her breast, or within her bowels. She jumps and writhes, but still says, “No, butcher, I will stay as I am.” “Take care! I will lash you with so cruel a scourge of vipers, I will smite you with such a blow, that you will afterwards go weeping and rending the air with your cries.” The next night he will not come. In the morning--it was Sunday--her husband went up to the castle. He came back all undone. The lord had said: “A brook that flows drop by drop cannot turn the mill. You bring me a halfpenny at a time, which is good for nought. I must set off in a fortnight. The king marches towards Flanders, and I have not even a war-horse, my own being lame ever since the tourney. Get ready for business: I am in want of a hundred pounds.” “But, my lord, where shall I find them?” “You may sack the whole village, if you will; I am about to give you men enough. Tell your churls, if the money is not forthcoming they are lost men; yourself especially--you shall die. I have had enough of you: you have the heart of a woman; you are slack and sluggish. You shall die--you shall pay for your cowardice, your effeminacy. Stay; it makes but very small difference whether you go down now, or whether I keep you here. This is Sunday: right loudly would the folk yonder laugh to see you dangling your legs from my battlements.”