Thereupon Paul’s young wife resolves to ruin Jélitza. She slays her husband’s black courser and his grey falcon, and accuses her stepsister of the deeds. Jélitza, however, both times succeeds in persuading Paul of her innocence, and Paul’s wife must resort to a yet blacker crime. One fine evening she steals away her stepsister’s knife, and slays with it her own and Paul’s baby. At early dawn she rouses her husband, tearing her cheeks, and shrieking in his ear, Evil is the love thou bear’st thy sister, And thy gifts to her are more than wasted: She has stabbed our infant in the cradle! Paul rushes to his sister’s chamber ‘like one possessed by madness;’ finds ‘the golden knife beneath her pillow.’ ‘It was damp with blood—’twas red and gory!’ Poor Jélitza, protesting in vain her innocence, is tied by her infuriated brother to the tails of four wild horses. But where’er a drop of blood fell from her There a flower sprang up—a fragrant flow’ret— Where her body fell when dead and mangled, There a church arose from out the desert. Meanwhile a curse lay on the murderess— Little time was spent, ere fatal sickness Fell upon Paul’s youthful wife—the sickness Nine long years lay on her—heavy sickness! ’Midst her bones the matted dog-grass sprouted, And amidst it nestled angry serpents. Which, though hidden, drank her eye-light’s brightness. In vain she seeks to shrive herself in her sister’s church. A mysterious voice arrests her at the portal, and warns her from the spot, ‘for this church can neither heal nor save thee.’ In her agony she implores her husband to bind _her_ too ‘to the wild steeds’ tails, and drive them—drive them to th’ immeasurable desert!’ Paul listens to her entreaties, and binding her to the wild steeds’ tails, ‘drove them forth across the mighty desert.’ But— Wheresoe’er a drop of blood fell from her, There sprang up the rankest thorns and nettles; Where her body fell, when dead, the waters Rushed and formed a lake both still and stagnant. O’er the lake there swam a small black courser: By his side a golden cradle floated: On the cradle sat a young grey falcon: In the cradle, slumbering, lay an infant: On its throat the white hand of its mother: And that hand a golden knife was holding.