Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/129

Rh death released her from her sufferings. The Count rode to the nunnery, took the child, put it under the charge of the superintendent of one of his castles, and gave her seven court dwarfs to wait upon her; but he armed himself magnificently, for all his thoughts and cares were to obtain the beautiful Brabantine.

With a joyful heart, he went to the court of the Countess Richilda; intoxicated with delight, he threw himself at her feet; and when she looked on the splendid man, for whom her heart had so long sighed, she felt indescribable pleasure, and from that hour swore to the knight the vow of fidelity. In the sweet passion of joy, in the choicest delights, days and years passed along, like a happy day-dream. But this luxurious pair possessed too little philosophy to comprehend that a too great enjoyment of pleasure is the tomb of pleasure, and that the relish of life, taken in too strong doses, deprives it of refined taste and of charms. Imperceptibly the sensibility of the organs for the joys of life relax, all enjoyments become monotonous, and the most refined variety will at last become tame. Only virtuous joys are lasting, and of these they knew nothing.

The Lady Richilda, according to her fickle temper, first felt this change, grew peevish, imperious, cold, and even jealous. Her lord no longer found comfort in his married state; a certain spleen pressed on his soul, the gleams of love had faded from his eyes, and his conscience, of which he had formerly made a hypocritical jest, began now to sting him in earnest. A scruple came over him for having so cruelly injured his first wife; he often thought of her with melancholy and even with affection, and, according to the saying,—“it bodes no happiness to the second marriage, when the late wife is often spoken of,”—disputes often arose between him and Lady Richilda, and he sometimes told her to her face, that she bred mischief.

“We can no longer dwell together,” he said one day to his wife, after a conjugal difference;—“my conscience urges me to expiate my guilt; I will make a pilgrimage to the holy sepulchre at Jerusalem, and try if I can there again find peace of heart [sic].” Richilda only faintly opposed this resolution, Count Gombald armed himself for the pilgrimage, made his will, took a lukewarm farewell, and departed.

Before a year had passed away, news came to Brabant, that the Count had died in Syria, of the plague, without having had the consolation of confessing his sins at the holy sepulchre. The Countess received these tidings with great indifference, but, nevertheless, outwardly observed the rules of good society, mourned, wept, clothed herself in mourning weeds, according to the precepts of etiquette, and caused a splendid monument to be erected to her departed lord. An old spy on men has well observed, that young widows resemble a piece of green wood, which burns at one end while water drops out of the other. The heart of the Countess