LITMIR.BIZ

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on to the hearth if so he wished. Thus she both hated and loved her own beauty; loved it because she longed to give it to a man she loved, hated it because it belonged to a man she hated.

      At other times she would walk down through the pine-trees to where the mountain brook fell into the black lake, that lay deeper, it was said, than line could plumb. Often she had sat there, wondering how it was that she of the Wolsung breed, daughter of the god Wotan, when in form of a man he wooed and won the forest maid who was her mother, yet lacked the courage to plunge in and be done with Hunding and her woe for ever. Yet had she known it, it was courage not cowardice that held her back from the leap, courage and that firm and strong belief that burned like a little flame, so clear, and yet so tiny within her, that there was something more written for her in the Book of Fate, to which even Wotan bowed, than that she should end all in one moment of unwomanly despair. Then, maybe, she would creep to the edge of the water, where the lake lay still and windless, and behold in that mirror the wonder and glory of her face, warm and red with the flow of her strong blood, with the great grey eyes all wildness and all fierce passion for the man she had never seen, whose coming her heart welcomed.

      "Surely I bring him a gift which not many would despise," she would say to herself; "and O, when he comes, the love which is in my heart will make me more beautiful than ever!" Then, maybe, if the spring stirred in her blood, she would lie there imagining him. Dark men she hated, because Hunding was dark. Dark was he and swarthy, of great stature, but so broad of build that he seemed not tall. Dark eyes looked from out of the eaves of his overhanging brows, a cavern fringed with long growth of eyebrows, and dark and mirthless and cruel was his heart. Not so should her lover be; he, the man for whom fate had predestined her, for whose sake fate held her back from the lake that was as black as Hunding. No, he should be tall, but slight, strong with the strength of speed and lightness, not strong with the knotted strength of the oak-tree. Hunding was black, so he should be fair, his hair of the colour of honey when it is drained fresh from the nest of the wild bee, and the sun strikes it.

      "Yes, yes," she would say, "the colour, the colour;" and then a braid of her own hair would stray over her shoulder; "yes, that colour," she would say; and indeed it was beyond compare, for fresh honey was lustreless beside it. Grey should his eyes be, for Hunding was dark, grey with a reflected blueness lying deep therein, even as her own eyes were grey like thin skeins of cloud suffused with the inimitable blue of the heaven behind them. Then she would picture him, and lo! when the picture was complete, the man whom she desired, for whom her heart waited, was of the same glorious mould as herself, such a man as Wotan might have begotten by the forest maiden who bore Sieglinde herself.

      Then when evening approached and the shadows of the pines began to lengthen across the lake, and the twittering of birds began to be hushed in the bushes, she would turn homewards again, and get ready the supper for her lord, and wait, his return. Sometimes even when she gazed into the lake, his image would cross her mind, and at that the reflection of her face froze and sickened. And every evening when she heard his step it froze and sickened, and her heart sickened also, and Sieglinde was Sieglinde no longer, but his wife, faithless in all but deed. Sometimes if the day and work had not gone well, he would speak no word to her, and again a curse or a blow might be her only traffic with him till next day he went forth again into the forest. But if the day had prospered with him, if he had slain much game, be it man or beast, he would be well pleased with her, and laugh to see her hatred of him, for that but seemed to kindle his love for her beauty. But Sieglinde was better pleased if he cursed her, for since he was hateful to her, his displeasure was almost sweet to her, but his pleasure made her sometimes hot with hatred against him, and she could have killed him, sometimes cold with hatred, when she could have killed herself. Nevertheless, between her and death stood ever the image of one who should come with outpouring of love, at sight of whom her own love long frozen and pent within her, nor even yet come to birth, should also be outpoured as the sap in a tree is called forth by the spring and the sun, and must follow that sweet bidding. But as yet it was winter with her and the world, and for sun the chill rain hissed on the roof-tree, and among the trees of the forest the winter wind sighed in the bitter air.

      The house of Hunding, Sieglinde's house of hate, stood high in the forest, and all round it grew great trees of stately growth, where in this May-time the birds should have been already mated, the male with throatfuls of song to while his mate's hour of patient brooding, she busy with the cares of motherhood. But so long had winter lingered, that the branches and boughs were still scarcely green with the buds that, herald spring, and as yet their feathered citizens were silent. On the hill-side the pine forest came down to the borders of the stream which fed the lake into which Sieglinde used so often to look, and from year's end to year's end this was never wholly silent because of the breezes that even in the depth of summer made music in the pines, so high and open to the clear winds of heaven was the place set, and by night and day low moaning as of a distant sea sounded ever through the chambers of the house of Hunding. Four-square was the house; the door opened straight from the wood of beech and oak in which it stood, into the dwelling-place, and on one side was the open hearth with seats right and left of it When sitting there Sieglinde could see through the smoke-hole the sky outside, and on clear nights would notice how the stars looked down through the curling wood-smoke, even as that which she knew would come to her shone steadfastly, though often obscured through the troubled clouds of her life. In front stood the table at which Hunding ate, and at which, when her lord had finished, she ate also. In the very centre of the hall grew a great tree, in the branches of which rested the beams of the roof. This was the work of Hunding, which he had prepared before ever he went on his violent wooing; and cunningly was it contrived, so that the strength and stability of the tree passed into the house itself, and not all the winds of heaven could move the house unless the tree itself was uprooted. Often did Sieglinde gaze at the mighty trunk, but not for pleasure at the workmanship of the house, but because in her day-dreams she ever saw her deliverance from the hated yoke of Hunding bound up with the tree. For on the day of her abhorred wedlock, when the kith and kin of Hunding made merry at his marriage feast, while she, whom he had carried off, sat apart with downcast eyes, and heart in which hatred of her husband already had flowered, there strode into the hall one whom neither she nor Hunding, nor any of those who sat at meat with him, knew. But as he came into the hall, a hush fell on the din of merry-making, and none durst ask him who he was, or what his business there might be. First one and then another started up to ask him what he did there, for he came unbidden by any, but at the flash of his eye, each in turn fell back abashed, but Sieglinde met his gaze undismayed, and found there no tremor nor fear, but a sudden spring of hope. The stranger was clad in a long cloak of blue, and on his head was a hat of so wide a brim that one of his eyes only was seen. Yet that was enough to put fear into the hearts of all except Sieglinde; and she found there hope and the promise of delivery. Still in silence he drew the sword he wore, and with one movement buried it up to the hilt in the stem of the ash. Then said the stranger: "Whoso can pull out the sword, his shall it be," and without more words strode out as he had come. Then one after the other, beginning from Hunding, all tried to draw out the sword, yet none with his utmost might could stir it an inch from the place where the stranger had so lightly thrust it. But ever, since the stranger's glance had fallen on her, Sieglinde knew in her heart that the man who would draw it out would be her deliverer from the house of hate. And thus she often cast her eyes to where the hilt of the sword still gleamed against the dark trunk of the ash, and waited for one to come.

      For the rest, curtains of woven wool, the work of Sieglinde's years of loveless marriage, hung on the walls, and on the floor were strewn bear-skins, the spoils of Hunding's hunting. Beside the hearth a stairway of few steps led to the store-house, and in the wall opposite was the door that led to the bed-chamber. Little recked Hunding when in the house of aught but his food and his sleep; and the table at which he ate, the stool on which he sat, and the bed in which he slept were furniture enough for him. And since to Sieglinde the house was a house of hate, she cared not to make it fair as women do whose heart is at home. Clean was the house and bare; the roof kept out the rain, and Hunding's hunting made a fat table.

      CHAPTER II

      THE COMING OF THE STRANGER

      On a certain day then in this May month, when winter still held sway, Hunding, as his custom was, had left the house armed with his spear and sword and shield, as soon as the eyelids

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