"Aurelie! Aurelie!" cried Samuel stamping on the ground with his foot. "Is that the way you remember my lessons? You should answer: 'Glorious Queen, I am from the city of Toul.'" And turning towards Brunhild, "Kindly pardon her, madam, but she is so childish, so simple—"
Brunhild cut off the Jew's flow of words and proceeded with her interrogatory:
"Where were you taken?"
"At Toul, madam, when the city was sacked by the King of Burgundy."
"Were you free or slave?"
"I was free—my father was a master armorer."
"Can you read and write? Have you pleasing accomplishments? Can you sing and play?"
"I can read and write, and my mother taught me to play upon the archlute and to sing."
When she said that she could sing, the unhappy girl was unable to repress the sobs that suffocated her. She must have thought of her mother.
"Weep, and weep again!" Samuel cried, angrily scolding the girl. "You can do that better than anything else. But, as you know, great Queen, one has a certain supply of tears, after the supply has run out the bag is empty."