Answer me not.
The maiden! and what weighed she in such a scale?--No more! I am
punished. Well speaks the ancient proverb:
"Beware the back-blows of Sathanas!"
I, that thought to have vanquished him! Vanity has wrecked me, in this
world and the next. I am the victim of self-incense. I hear the demons
shouting their chorus--"Here comes Monk Gregory, who called himself
Conqueror of Darkness!" In the camp I am discredited and a scoff; in the
city I am spat upon, abhorred. Satan, my son, fights not with his fore-
claws. 'Tis with his tail he fights, O Farina!--Listen, my son! he
entered to his kingdom below through Cologne, even under the stones of
the Cathedral Square, and the stench of him abominably remaineth,
challenging the nostrils of holy and unholy alike. The Kaiser cannot
approach for him; the citizens are outraged. Oh! had I held my peace in
humbleness, I had truly conquered him. But he gave me easy victory, to
inflate me. I shall not last. Now this only is left, my son; that thou
bear living testimony to the truth of my statement, as I bear it to the
folly!'
Farina promised, in the face of all, he would proclaim and witness to his
victory on Drachenfels.
'That I may not be ranked an impostor!' continued the Monk. 'And how
great must be the virtue of them that encounter that dark spirit! Valour
availeth nought.
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