But Anne-Mie, without hearing her, passed like the others into the depth of the wood, walking silently over the snow like a living person.
While the head was weeping and uttering bitter plaints, came out from the forest the child of nine years old, whom the Miserable had killed first of all. Still wearing her shroud she approached and fell at the feet of the mannikin Prince of the Stones.
“Ah,” she said, kissing the head tenderly, stroking it, caressing it, and wiping away its tears, “poor Miserable, I will pray for thee to the very good God, who readily hears the prayers of children.”
And the girl prayed in this wise:
“Dear Lord, see how much he is suffering! Is it not payment enough that he should die sixteen times? Ah, Lord, sweet Lord, and you, Madam Mary, who are so kind, deign to hear me and grant him forgiveness.”
But the mannikin, starting up, pushed the child away and said harshly: “This head is mine, thy prayers avail nothing; be off, little ragamuffin, go back whence thou came.”
And the child went away like the other maids into the depth of the wood.
Then he thrust his hand into the breast of the Miserable and pulled out a heart of stone: then, in his rasping voice, which hissed like a viper and scraped like a thousand pebbles under the iron sole of an armed man, he said: “Ambitious heart, heart of stone, thou wast in thy lifetime cruel and a coward; thou couldst not be content with such ample gifts as God in His bounty had given thee, thou hadst no desire towards goodness, courage, or just dealing, but towards gold, power, and vain honours; thou hadst no love for anything, neither father, mother, brother, nor sister; and so, to get more power and higher jurisdiction, thou killedst the people of the land of Flanders, without shame: and so also thou didst set thyself to hurt the weak, sucking thy life from their life, and thy blood from their blood. So have done and so shall always do this reptile order of ambitious ugly men. Blessed be God, who, by the hands of this frail and winsome maid, has cut off thine head from thy neck and taken thee from the world.”
As he spoke he had thrown the heart down into the snow, and trampling over it with great despite, kicking it with his toe like a vile thing, and laughing bitterly, he spoke again in his rasping voice:
“Stone thou art, stone shalt thou be a thousand years, but a live stone, a suffering stone. And when men come and carve thee, cleave thee, grind thee to powder, thou shalt endure it all without being able to cry out. Ambitious heart, heart of stone, suffer and bleed, my cousin.