Most of those who lined the street could have had no close relations with
the dead girl. But yonder black-robed mourners who followed the bier
were her parents, her brothers and sisters, her nearest relatives, the
members of the Council, and the family servants. And she, the wretched,
reckless, sinful, crippled strolling player, for whom not a soul on earth
cared, whose death would not have drawn even a single tear from any eye,
to whom a speedy end could be only a benefit, was perhaps the cause of
the premature drying up of this pure fountain of joy, which had refreshed
so many hearts and animated them with the fairest hopes.

The tall lady, whose noble face and majestic figure were shrouded in a
thick veil, was Juliane's mother--and she had offered the sick ropedancer
a home in her wealthy household.

"If she had only known," thought Kuni, "the injury I was inflicting upon
her heart's treasure, she would rather have hunted me with dogs from her
threshold."

In spite of the veil which floated around the stately figure of the
grieving mother, she could see her bosom rise and fall with her sobs of
anguish. Kuni's compassionate heart made it impossible for her to watch
this sorrow longer, and, covering her face with her hands, she turned her
back upon the procession and, weeping aloud, limped away as fast as her
injured foot would let her. Meanwhile she sometimes said to herself that
she was the worst of all sinners because she had cursed the dead girl and
called down death and destruction upon her head, sometimes she listened
to the voice within, which told her that she had no reason to grieve over
Juliane's death, and completely embitter her already wretched life by
remorse and self-accusations; the dead girl was the sole cause of her