In you the wolf's blood will flow from
generation to generation; it shall weep and howl among the snows of the
Black Forest. Some will say, "Hark! The wind howls!" others, "No, it is
the owl hooting!" But not so; it is your blood, mine and the blood of the
she-wolf who drove me to murder Hedwige, my wife before God and the
Church. She died under my bloody hands! Cursed be the she-wolf! for it is
written, "I will visit the sins of the fathers upon the children." The
crime of the father shall be visited upon the children until justice
shall have been satisfied!'
"Then old Hugh the Wolf died.
"From that dreary day the north wind has howled across the wilds, and the
owl has hooted in the dark, and travellers by night know not that it is
the blood of the she-wolf weeping for the day of vengeance that will
come, whose blood will be renewed from generation to generation--so says
Hertzog--until the day when the first wife of Hugh, Hedwige the Fair,
shall reappear at Nideck under the form of an angel to comfort and to
forgive!"
Then Sperver, rising from his seat, took a lamp and demanded of Knapwurst
the keys of the library, and beckoned to me to follow him.
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