Stranica 200 [200]
OCR
LABOULAYE’S FAIRY BOOK insult which nothing but blood can wash out. He laughs well that laughs last. Here, Rachimburg!”’ At this terrible name, a jailer with a bushy beard and threatening mien entered the room, pushed the queen on a wretched truckle-bed, and shut and double-locked the iron door. If Pazza wept, 1t was so quietly that no one heard her. Tired of the silence, Charming departed, with rage in his heart, resolving that his rigor should break the pride that braved him. Vengeance, it is said, is the delight of kings. Two hours later the countess received a note by a sure hand acquainting her with the sad fate of her niece. How this note reached her is known to me, but I will not betray the secret. If a charitable jailer is found by chance, he should be treated with consideration; the species is rare, and is daily becoming rarer. V A TERRIBLE EVENT The next morning the court gazette announced that the queen had been seized with a raging fit of madness on the very night of her wedding, and that there was little hope of saving her. There was scarcely a courtier, indeed, that had not observed the princess’s restless air on the evening before, and no one was surprised at her malady. All pitied the king, who received with a gloomy and constrained 160
