Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/72

 away, when Golo conceives the plan of making himself master of the castle and of marrying the fair Genovefa. She repels him with disgust. The wicked Golo then locks her into a dark dungeon and orders his man-at-arms to kill her. This the servant promises to do, but moved by pity he leads her out of the dungeon into a great lonely forest after telling Golo that the murder has been accomplished. The fair Genovefa lives upon herbs and berries and finds shelter in a cave. Here she gives birth to a child, a boy, the son of Count Siegfried, whom she calls “Schmerzenreich”—dolorosus. Fearing that both she and the boy will starve to death, the poor mother fervently prays to God for help, and behold! a doe appears and provides them both with milk. Every day the doe returns and Schmerzenreich grows up to be a strong boy. Suddenly Count Siegfried arrives from the Holy Land to the dismay of the wicked Golo, who had been hoping that his master would be killed in the far-away country.

The castle folk at once recognize the count; Golo turns over the castle to him, and tells him that Genovefa is dead. The count is very sad. He goes into the forest to hunt, and happens to see a doe, which leads him to the cave. Husband and wife are reunited and the whole truth comes to light. Mother and child are taken back in triumph to the castle, and the horrid Golo is condemned to die of hunger in the same dungeon into which he had cast the fair Genovefa.

The puppet show had other plays, one—the great warrior-prince “Eugene”—a heroic drama in which great battles were fought and whole rows of paper Turks were shot down. And then a fairy play with every kind of marvelous transformation and other surprises. All these things were very pretty, but to my mind they could not be compared to the fair Genovefa. The impression that this play