She alone remains behind, often clutching
at her throat, wringing her hands, and beating her palms, as she
reads her psalms in her gilt lettered psalter. All this while my
lord Yvain is at the window gazing at her, and the more he looks
at her the more he loves her and is enthralled by her. He would
have wished that she should cease her weeping and reading, and
that she should feel inclined to converse with him. Love, who
caught him at the window, filled him with this desire. But he
despairs of realising his wish, for he cannot imagine or believe
that his desire can be gratified. So he says: "I may consider
myself a fool to wish for what I cannot have. Her lord it was
whom I wounded mortally, and yet do I think I can be reconciled
with her? Upon my word, such thoughts are folly, for at present
she has good reason to hate me more bitterly than anything. I am
right in saying `at present', for a woman has more than one mind.
That mind in which she is just now I trust she will soon change;
indeed, she will change it certainly, and I am mad thus to
despair. God grant that she change it soon! For I am doomed to
be her slave, since such is the will of Love. Whoever does not
welcome Love gladly, when he comes to him, commits treason and a
felony.
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