Having reached it he pushed carefully aside the yellow curtain of the
outer door, letting the moonlight fall into the dark room.
At the entrance to the sleeping-room, before its red curtain, lay
Haduwalt, snoring; by him, lying on its side, empty, was the amphora.
Lightly, on tip-toe and with a beating heart, the young man advanced
and cautiously divided the two halves of the red curtain. He then
perceived, with a smile, the cunning arrangement of the thread; it was
still fastened to the leathern belt of the guard; but the hand of the
sleeper had opened; the ball lay on a stool by her couch. With a wide
stride Liuthari stepped across the old man into the sleeping-room.
Above the head of the bed, in a niche in the wall, stood the little
earthen lamp; it threw its mild light over the pillow. By its red
glimmer, he perceived the infant near the bed of the mother in a wicker
cradle.
The beautiful sleeper had loosened her abundant light-brown hair; it
flowed over her naked shoulders and splendidly curved, though delicate
bosom, from which the woollen covering had half slipped.
The dazzlingly white left arm she had placed behind her head and neck;
the right hand covered, as if protecting, the left breast. The intruder
stepped quite close. So ravishingly beautiful he had not seen her, when
awake; and the serious eyes now closed no longer maintained a strict
watch.
The full lips were half opened; he inhaled the sweet breath of her
mouth. The young man trembled from head to foot.
"Only one kiss," thought he, "and it shall not awake her."
He was already bending softly over her face. The beautiful lips then
moved, and in her sleep she said tenderly:
"Come, O my Fulvius; kiss me!"
With the speed of lightning, Liuthari turned, sprang lightly across
Haduwalt on the threshold, then down the steps into the garden, clasped
his two hands before his eyes, and murmured:
"Oh, what wickedness might I not have done!"
He fell on his knees, and hid his feverish head in the dewy grass.
Repentance, pain, unstilled longing, surged together within him, and
were at length dissolved in a salutary stream of tears. Long lay he
thus. At last the youth of the exhausted, wounded man asserted itself
beneficially; he sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.