The Entire Short Works of George Meredith | Page 5

weather: They might have loved each other well, But for one they loved together.'
'You may say, poor Kraut, child!' said Aunt Lisbeth. 'Well! his face was before that as red as this dragon's jaw, and ever after he went about as white as a pullet's egg. That was something wonderful!' 'That was it!' chimed Margarita.
'O the King he loved his lawful wife, The Knight a lawless lady: And ten on one-made ringing strife, Beneath the forest shady.'
'Fifty to one, child!' said Aunt Lisbeth: 'You forget the story. They made Kraut sit with them at the jabbering feast, the only mortal there. The walls were full of eye-sockets without eyes, but phosphorus instead, burning blue and damp.'
'Not to-night, aunty dear! It frightens me so,' pleaded Margarita, for she saw the dolor coming.
'Night! when it's broad mid-day, thou timid one! Good heaven take pity on such as thou! The dish was seven feet in length by four broad. Kraut measured it with his eye, and never forgot it. Not he! When the dish- cover was lifted, there he saw himself lying, boiled!
"'I did not feel uncomfortable then," Kraut told us. "It seemed natural."
'His face, as it lay there, he says, was quite calm, only a little wrinkled, and piggish-looking-like. There was the mole on his chin, and the pucker under his left eyelid. Well! the Baron carved. All the guests were greedy for a piece of him. Some cried out for breast; some for toes. It was shuddering cold to sit and hear that! The Baroness said, "Cheek!"'
'Ah!' shrieked Margarita, 'that can I not bear! I will not hear it, aunt; I will not!'
'Cheek!' Aunt Lisbeth reiterated, nodding to the floor.
Margarita put her fingers to her ears.
'Still, Kraut says, even then he felt nothing odd. Of course he was horrified to be sitting with spectres as you and I should be; but the first tremble of it was over. He had plunged into the bath of horrors, and there he was. I 've heard that you must pronounce the names of the Virgin and Trinity, sprinkling water round you all the while for three minutes; and if you do this without interruption, everything shall disappear. So they say. "Oh! dear heaven of mercy!" says Kraut, "what I felt when the Baron laid his long hunting-knife across my left cheek!"'
Here Aunt Lisbeth lifted her eyes to dote upon Margarita's fright. She was very displeased to find her niece, with elbows on the window-sill and hands round her head, quietly gazing into the street.
She said severely, 'Where did you learn that song you were last singing, Margarita? Speak, thou girl!'
Margarita laughed.
'The thrush, and the lark, and the blackbird, They taught me how to sing: And O that the hawk would lend his eye, And the eagle lend his wing.'
'I will not hear these shameless songs,' exclaimed Aunt Lisbeth.
'For I would view the lands they view, And be where they have been: It is not enough to be singing For ever in dells unseen !'
A voice was heard applauding her. 'Good! right good! Carol again, Gretelchen! my birdie!'
Margarita turned, and beheld her father in the doorway. She tripped toward him, and heartily gave him their kiss of meeting. Gottlieb glanced at the helm of Siegfried.
'Guessed the work was going well; you sing so lightsomely to-day, Grete! Very pretty! And that's Drachenfels? Bones of the Virgins! what a bold fellow was Siegfried, and a lucky, to have the neatest lass in Deutschland in love with him. Well, we must marry her to Siegfried after all, I believe! Aha? or somebody as good as Siegfried. So chirrup on, my darling!'
'Aunt Lisbeth does not approve of my songs,' replied Margarita, untwisting some silver threads.
'Do thy father's command, girl!' said Aunt Lisbeth.
'And doing his command, Should I do a thing of ill, I'd rather die to his lovely face, Than wanton at his will.'
'There--there,' said Aunt Lisbeth, straining out her fingers; 'you see, Gottlieb, what over-indulgence brings her to. Not another girl in blessed Rhineland, and Bohemia to boot, dared say such words!--than-- I can't repeat them!--don't ask me!--She's becoming a Frankish girl!'
'What ballad's that?' said Gottlieb, smiling.
'The Ballad of Holy Ottilia; and her lover was sold to darkness. And she loved him--loved him----'
'As you love Siegfried, you little one?'
'More, my father; for she saw Winkried, and I never saw Siegfried. Ah! if I had seen Siegfried! Never mind. She loved him; but she loved Virtue more. And Virtue is the child of God, and the good God forgave her for loving Winkried, the Devil's son, because she loved Virtue more, and He rescued her as she was being dragged down--down--down, and was half fainting with the smell of brimstone--rescued her and had her carried into His Glory, head and feet, on the wings of angels, before all men,