In summer the young couple walked together and never left each other's side. They plucked flowers, yellow, red and blue, and gave them to each other; they saw the grass swaying in the wind and heard the birds singing in the woods, and every word they spoke was like a caress. In winter they drove with bells on their horses and the sky was blue and high above them, the stars coursed over their everlasting plains. Thus passed many, many years. The young couple had three children and their hearts loved one another as on the first day, in the first kiss. Then the proud Lord fell sick, of the sickness that chained him to his bed so long and put his wife's patience to so stern a proof. The day he was well and arose from his bed he did not know himself again; the sickness had disfigured him and taken away his hair. He suffered and brooded over it. Then one morning he said: "Now you cannot love me any more." But his wife threw her arms about him, blushing, and kissed him as passionately as in the springtime of their youth and answered: "I love you, love you still. I will never forget that it was I and no other whom you chose and made so happy." And she went into her chamber and cut off all her yellow hair, to be like her husband whom she loved. And again many, many years went by, the young couple were now old and their children were grown up. They shared every happiness as before; in summer they still walked in the fields and saw the waving grass and in the winter they wrapped themselves in furs and drove beneath the starry sky. And their hearts continued warm and glad as with a marvellous wine. The Lady was paralysed. The old Lady could not walk, she had to be drawn in a wheeled chair and the Lord himself drew her. But the Lady suffered so unspeakably from her misfortune and her face was deeply furrowed with sorrow. Then she said one day: "Now I would gladly die. I am so helpless and ugly and your face is so handsome, you cannot kiss me any more and you cannot love me as you used." But her Lord embraced her, red with emotion, and answered: "I love you more, more than my life, my dear one, love you as the first day, the first hour, when you gave me the rose. Do you remember? You handed me the rose and looked at me with your beautiful eyes; the rose smelt like you, you blushed like it and all my senses were intoxicated. But now I love you even more, you are more beautiful than in your youth and my heart thanks you and blesses you for every day you have been mine." The Lord went into his chamber, threw acid on his face to disfigure it, and said to his wife: "I have had the misfortune to get some acid on my face, my cheeks are covered with burns, and now you cannot love me any more?" "Oh, my bridegroom, my beloved!" faltered the old woman, kissing his hands. "You are more beautiful than any man on earth, your voice kindles my heart even today and I love you till death." XIII