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Much relieved Katharina crept back to bed; but in the morning the worst had happened: Susannah could no longer leave her bed; she was feverish, and on her lips, the very lips which had kissed her child's infected hair, there were indeed, between her nose and mouth, the first terrible, unmistakable spots. The leech came and confirmed the fact. The house was closed and barred.
Within the cabin Katharina had made her waiting-women dress her in white and deck her with white flowers-myrtle, roses and lotos; but she vouchsafed no reply to their anxious enquiries.
When Count Vavel returned from his skirmish with De Fervlans's demons, he sent his betrothed at once to Raab, with instructions not to separate herself again from Marie. He had not been able to accompany Katharina on her journey, as he had received marching orders immediately on his return to camp.
But she would have done better to keep her opinions to herself, for before she had done speaking Katharina gave her an angry push with her foot. This was done; and Katharina herself rubbed her hands and arms with passionate diligence.
Katharina obeyed without an instant's hesitation. After a while the metal casket began to glow in the midst of the flames. It became red, then a pale rose-color, while a thin cord of vapor trailed through the keyhole. "The little garments are burning," whispered Vavel, "and the documents, and the portraits, and the heap of worthless money.
It was with a sinking and anxious heart that Katharina had entered the anteroom. She had screened herself from a scolding before now by trivial subterfuges, but never had told a serious lie; and every instinct rebelled against the demand that she should now state a direct falsehood.
He found it only too easy to sing her praises; but as he did so with growing enthusiasm Katharina hit him on the arm exclaiming, half in jest and half seriously vexed: "Oh, she is a goddess! And pray do you love her or me? You had better not make me jealous! Do you hear?"
The old man looked on with sympathetic pleasure, as though it roused the sweetest memories in his mind; and his kind eyes shone as Orion, no less mischievously happy than the young girl, whispered something in her ear; she drew the long stem of grass out of her waist-belt to administer immediate and condign punishment withal, struck it across his face, and then fled over grass-plot and flower-bed, as swift as a roe, without heeding his repeated shouts of "Katharina! bewitching, big damsel, Katharina!" till she reached the house.
Paula seemed invulnerable; but there was not a pang which Katharina would not gladly have given her to whom she owed the deepest humiliation her young life had ever known. How was it that Paula failed to regard Heliodora as a rival? She had reflected that, if Orion had really returned the widow's passion, he could not have borne so long a separation.
The quarrel was an unhappy one on both sides; and it must be confessed there is especially a want of generosity in the manner in which Luther continued to cherish the dislike which sprang out of it. In the course of the same year Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of nine nuns who, under the influence of his teaching, had emancipated themselves from their religious vows.
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