rom regard for her marriage-vow, certain it is
that life in a space so narrow, where they were always in each
other's sight, so near and yet so far, became a downright torment. And
even when she had once shown her weakness, still before her husband
and others equally jealous the moments of happiness would assuredly be
rare. Hence sprang many a foolish outbreak of unsatisfied desire. The
less they came together, the more deeply they longed to do so. A
disordered fancy sought to attain that end by means grotesque,
unnatural, utterly senseless. So by way of establishing a means of
secret correspondence between the two, the Witch had the letters of
the alphabet pricked on both their arms. If one of them wanted to send
a thought to the other, he brightened and brought out by sucking the
blood-red letters of the wished-for word. Immediately, so it is said,
the corresponding letters bled on the other's arm.

Sometimes in these mad fits they would drink each of the other's
blood, so as to mingle their souls, it was said, in close communion.
The devouring of Coucy's heart, which the lady "found so good that she
never ate again," is the most tragical instance of these monstrous
vows of loving cannibalism. But when the absent one did not die, but
only the love within him, then the lady would seek counsel of the
Witch, begging of her the means of holding him, of bringing him back.

The incantations used by the sorceress of Theocritus and Virgil,
though employed also in the Middle Ages, were seldom of much avail. An
attempt was made to win back the lover by a spell seemingly copied
from antiquity, by means of a cake, of a _confarreatio_[49] like that
which, both in Asia and Europe, had always been the holiest pledge of
love. But in this case it is not the soul only, it is the flesh also
they seek to bind; there must be so true an identity established
between the two, that, dead to all other women, he shall live only for
her. It was a cruel ceremony on the woman's side. "No haggling,
madam," says the Witch. Suddenly the proud dame grows obedient, even
to letting herself be stripped bare: for thus indeed it must be.

[49] One form of wedding among the Romans, in which the
bride-cake was broken between the pair, in token of their
union.--TRANS.

What a triumph for the Witch! And if this lady were the same as she
who had once made her "run the gauntlet," how meet the vengeance, how
dread the requital now! But it is not e