ed even
red-haired Gitta to declare that the loss of his tongue was scarcely a
misfortune.

Kuni indignantly turned her back upon the slanderer and gazed out of
the window again. The Nuremberg Honourables had disappeared, but several
grooms were unbuckling the knapsacks from the horses and carrying them
into the house. The aristocratic travellers were probably cleansing
themselves from the dust of the road before they entered the taproom.

Kuni thought so, and gazed sometimes into vacancy, sometimes into her
own lap. Her eyes had a dreamy light, for the incident which she had
just related rose before her mind with perfect clearness.

It seemed as though she were gazing a second time at the wedding
procession which was approaching St. Sebald's, and the couple who led
it.

Never had she beheld anything fairer than the bride with the myrtle
wreath on her beautifully formed head, whence a delicate lace veil
floated over her long, thick, golden hair. She could not help gazing at
her as if spellbound. When she moved forward, holding her bridegroom's
hand, she appeared to float over the rice and flowers strewn in her path
to the church--it was in February. As Kuni saw the bride raise her
large blue eyes to her lover's so tenderly and yet so modestly, and the
bridegroom thank her with a long joyous look of love, she wondered what
must be the feelings of a maiden who, so pure, so full of ardent love,
and so fervently beloved in return, was permitted to approach the house
of God, accompanied by a thousand pious wishes, with the first and only
man whom she loved, and to whom she wished to devote herself for her
whole life. Again, as at that time, a burning thrill ran through her
limbs. Then a bitter smile hovered around her lips.

She had asked herself whether the heart of one who experienced such
joys, to whom such a fate was allotted, would not burst from sheer joy.
Now the wish, the hope, and every new resolve for good or ill were
alike over. At that hour, before the door of St. Sebald's, she had
been capable of all, all, perhaps even the best things, if any one had
cherished her in his heart as Lienhard Groland loved the beautiful woman
at his side.

She could not help remembering the spell with which the sight of those
two had forced her to watch their every movement, to gaze at them, and
them only, as if the world contained nothing else. How often she had
repeated to herself that in that hour she was bewitched, whethe