" And he replied: "Be silent, foolish one!
Thy grief is joy and thy sorrow is bliss compared with that in
which I am cast down. In proportion as a man becomes more
accustomed to happiness and joy, so is he more distracted and
stunned than any other man by sorrow when it comes. A man of
little strength can carry, through custom and habit, a weight
which another man of greater strength could not carry for
anything." "Upon my word," she said, "I know the truth of that
remark; but that is no reason to believe that your misfortune is
worse than mine. Indeed, I do not believe it at all, for it
seems to me that you can go anywhere you choose to go, whereas I
am imprisoned here, and such a fate is my portion that to-morrow
I shall be seized and delivered to mortal judgment." "Ah, God!"
said he, "and for what crime?" "Sir knight, may God never have
mercy upon my soul, if I have merited such a fate! Nevertheless,
I shall tell you truly, without deception, why I am here in
prison: I am charged with treason, and I cannot find any one to
defend me from being burned or hanged to-morrow." "In the first
place," he replied, "I may say that my grief and woe are greater
than yours, for you may yet be delivered by some one from the
peril in which you are.
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