o wandered she till she came to the tower
where her lover lay. The tower was flanked with pillars, and she
cowered under one of them, wrapt in her mantle. Then thrust she her
head through a crevice of the tower, that was old and worn, and heard
Aucassin, who was weeping within, and making dole and lament for the
sweet friend he loved so well. And when she had listened to him some
time she began to speak....

When Aucassin heard Nicolette say that she would pass into a far
country, he was all in wrath.

"Fair, sweet friend," quoth he, "thou shalt not go, for then wouldst
thou be my death. And the first man that saw thee and had the might
withal, would take thee straightway into his bed to be his leman. And
once thou camest into a man's bed, and that bed not mine, wit ye well
that I would not tarry till I had found a knife to pierce my heart and
slay myself. Nay, verily, wait so long I would not; but would hurl
myself so far as I might see a wall, or a black stone, and I would
dash my head against it so mightily that the eyes would start and my
brain burst. Rather would I die even such a death than know that thou
hadst lain in a man's bed, and that bed not mine."

"Aucassin," she said, "I trow thou lovest me not as much as thou
sayest, but I love thee more than thou lovest me."

"Ah, fair, sweet friend," said Aucassin, "it may not be that thou
shouldest love me even as I love thee. Woman may not love man as man
loves woman; for a woman's love lies in her eye, and the bud of her
breast, and her foot's tiptoe, but the love of a man is in his heart
planted, whence it can never issue forth and pass away."

Now when Aucassin and Nicolette were holding this parley together, the
town's watchmen were coming down a street, with swords drawn beneath
their cloaks, for Count Garin had charged them that if they could take
her, they should slay her. But the sentinel that was on the tower saw
them coming, and heard them speaking of Nicolette as they went, and
threatening to slay her.

"God," quoth he, "this were great pity to slay so fair a maid! Right
great charity it were if I could say aught to her, and they perceive
it not, and she should be on her guard against them, for if they slay
her, then were Aucassin, my damoiseau, dead, and that were great
pity."...

Aucassin fared through the forest from path to path after Nicolette,
and his horse bare him furiously. Think ye not that the thorns him
spared, nor the briers, nay, no