He said: "May I
ask for something, love?" And, wild with joy, she answered "Yes." And
she gave him all, and yet he did not thank her.
The other he loved as a slave, as a madman and a beggar. Why? Ask the
dust of the road and the leaves that fall, ask the mysterious God of
life, for there is no other that knows such things. She gave him
nothing--no, nothing did she give him--and yet he thanked her. She said,
"Give me your peace and your understanding!" and he was only sorry that
she did not ask his life.
And his maid was set in the tower...
"What do you there, maiden, sitting and smiling?"
"I think of something ten years back. It was then I met him."
"You remember him still?"
"I remember him still."
And time goes on.
"What do you there, maiden? And why do you sit and smile?"
"I am embroidering his name on a cloth."
"Whose name? His who shut you up here?"
"Yes, the one I met twenty years ago."
"You remember him still?"
"I remember him as I did before."
And time goes on...
"What do you there, prisoner?"
"I grow old, and can no longer see to sew; I scrape the plaster from the
walls. And of that I am making an urn to be a little gift for him."
"Of whom are you speaking?"
"Of my lover, who shut me in the tower."
"And do you smile at that, because he locked you in the tower?"
"I am thinking of what he will say now.
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