"He had drunk more than usual on that evening--he entered here, where we now are, unsteady of foot. It was winter--there was a fire in the hearth. His wife Wisigarde sat at a corner of the chimney. The seigneur count then had among us a washerwoman, named Martine, for his favorite. He said to Martine: 'Come, come, confounded wench--let's to bed--and you, Wisigarde,' he added addressing his wife, 'take a lamp and light us.'" "That, certainly, was a great shame upon Wisigarde." "All the more, madam, seeing she was of a proud temper and impetuous nature. She often whipped and bit us, and she quarrelled a good deal with the seigneur count." "What, Morise! Did she dare quarrel with him?" "Oh, she feared nothing--nothing! When she was in a rage, she roared and ground her teeth like a lioness." "What a terrible woman!" "Well, madam, that evening, instead of yielding to the whim of the seigneur count, and taking the lamp to light him to his bed, Wisigarde began scolding them both--the count and Martine." "She certainly invited death! My blood freezes in my veins at the thought of it." "Thereupon, madam, I saw, as clearly as I see you now, the count's eyes grow bloodshot and froth rise to his lips. He threw himself upon his wife, struck her in the face with his fist, and then, giving her a kick in the stomach, threw her to the ground. She was in as towering a rage as himself, and did not cease hurling invectives at him; she even tried to bite him, when, after he had thrown her upon the ground, he planted both his knees upon her chest. Finally, he held her throat so tight in both his large hands that her face became violet and she was strangled. After she lay dead, he went to bed with Martine." "Morise, I fear me the same fate for myself, some day. That terrible count will yet kill me." And shuddering over her whole frame, Godegisele dropped her head upon her bosom, and her distaff fell down at her feet. "Oh, madam, you should not be so alarmed. As long, at any rate, as you will be pregnant, you will have nothing to fear--the seigneur count will not want to kill at one blow both his wife and child." "But after I shall have given birth to that child--I shall then be killed like Wisigarde!" "That will depend, madam, upon the humor of the seigneur count. He may prefer to cast you off and return you to your parents, as he did the other wives whom he did not kill." "Oh, Morise! Would to heaven that monseigneur the count would return me to my family! What a misfortune to me it was that Neroweg should have seen me when he visited Mayence! What a misfortune that the wisp of straw which he threw at my breast when he took me to wife was not a sharp-pointed dagger! I would have at least died amidst my own family." "What wisp of straw was that, madam?" "Do you not know that it is the custom with us, that when a Frank weds a free girl, he takes her right hand, and with his left throws a wisp of straw into her bosom?"