Page:Tales by Musæus, Tieck, Richter, Volume 1.djvu/154

 duce a fermentation that shall quite change its nature. The sagacious Squire pricked up his ears at hearing of these interesting events; and, as if the narrow passage of the auditory nerves had not been sufficient to convey the tidings fast enough into his brain, he likewise opened the wide doorway of his mouth, and both heard and tasted the unexpected news with great avidity. After maturely weighing everything, his vote ran thus: To lay hold of the seeming hope of release with both hands, and realise the Princess’s plan; meanwhile, to do nothing either for it or against it, and leave the issue to Heaven. “You are blotted out from the book of the living,” said he, “in your native land; from the abyss of slavery there is no deliverance, if you do not hitch yourself up by the rope of love. Your spouse, good lady, will never return to your embraces. If, in seven years, sorrow for your loss has not overpowered her and cut her off, Time has overpowered her sorrow, and she is happy by the side of another. But, to renounce your religion! That is a hard nut, in good sooth; too hard for you to crack. Yet there are means for this, too. In no country on Earth is it the custom for the wife to teach the husband what road to take for Heaven; no, she follows his steps, and is led and guided by him as the cloud by the wind; looks neither to the right hand nor to the left, nor behind her, like Lot’s wife, who was changed into a pillar of salt: for where the husband arrives, there is her abode. I have a wife at home, too; but think you, if I were stuck in Purgatory, she would hesitate to follow me, and waft fresh air upon my poor soul with her fan? So, depend on it, the Princess will renounce her false Prophet. If she love you truly, she will, to a certainty, be glad to change her Paradise for ours.”

The mettled Kurt added much farther speaking to persuade his master that he ought not to resist this royal passion, but to forget all other ties, and free himself from his captivity. It did not strike him, that by his confidence in the affection of his wife, he had recalled to his master’s memory the affection of his own amiable spouse; a remembrance which it was his object to abolish. The heart of the Count felt crushed as in a press; he rolled to this side and that on his bed; and his thoughts and purposes ran athwart each other in the strangest perplexity, till, towards morning, wearied out by this internal