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Wisigarde herself or her spectre will perhaps appear this night before my bed and torment me! It is a warning from heaven or from hell. The devil must be conjured away!" And turning to Morise: "Run quick for the clerk! He shall pray at my side during the night he shall not leave me. The spectre of Wisigarde will not dare to approach me with a priest at my side."
The count's terror increased amain while Morise ran out for the clerk, and Godegisele, more dead than alive with fear, clung on her knees to the beam as she felt her strength wholly leaving her. The count noticed not her distress, but also dropping on his knees smote his chest and cried: "Lord, God! Have mercy upon a miserable sinner!
Why, madam, I ask you, do you apprehend that your husband will kill you?" "When he is intoxicated he does not reason." "That is true there is always that danger." "But that danger is continuous; he is every day intoxicated. Oh, why did I come to this distant region of Gaul, where I feel an utter stranger!" And after a long interval of sad revery: "Morise my good Morise!"
He may prefer to cast you off and return you to your parents, as he did the other wives whom he did not kill." "Oh, Morise! Would to heaven that monseigneur the count would return me to my family! What a misfortune to me it was that Neroweg should have seen me when he visited Mayence!
"Madam, I am at your orders." "You, all of you slaves, do not hate me, do you?" "No, madam; you are not wicked like Wisigarde you never whip and bite us." "Morise, listen to me." "Madam, I listen. But why are you silent? And your cheeks, otherwise so pale, growing incarnate " "It is because I dare not tell you. But listen, you are you are one of monseigneur the count's favorites."
At this moment the count's wife dropped her distaff which she held across her knees and said to the slave in a tremulous voice: "And so, Morise, you saw her assassinated?" "Yes, madam, I witnessed the sad scene. On that day she wore that same green robe with silver flowers that you have on, she also had on the handsome necklace and bracelets that I see on your arms and neck."
Every day he demands of me that I show them to him, and he counts them. I have nothing to offer you, Morise, nothing but my friendship, if you promise me not to irritate monseigneur against me." "My heart would have to be very wicked, if I were to anger monseigneur against you." "Ah, Morise! How I would like to be in your place!" "You, a count's wife you would prefer to be a slave! Impossible!"
"All the more, madam, seeing she was of a proud temper and impetuous nature. She often whipped and bit us, and she quarrelled a good deal with the seigneur count." "What, Morise! Did she dare quarrel with him?" "Oh, she feared nothing nothing! When she was in a rage, she roared and ground her teeth like a lioness." "What a terrible woman!"
The count stopped for a moment at the threshold, leaned one hand against the door-case, and, with his body swaying backward and forward, let his eyes travel over the scared slaves with a besotted and semi-libidinous look. After repeated hiccoughs he called out to his wife's confidant: "Morise come come, confounded wench!"
"What! What ails you? Answer!" shouted the count brutally. "Do you, perchance, object that I told Morise to come? Dare you cross me?" "No! Oh, no! Is not monseigneur master in this place? Are not his female slaves at his orders? And am not I, Godegisele, myself, his humble servant?"
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