"Oh, it is he—it is my husband!"
"Yes, madam, it is his step."
"Oh, I am afraid—remain near me!"
It was Neroweg. His latest libations had thrown him into a state of almost complete intoxication. He stepped into his wife's apartment with a drunken man's unsteady foot. At the sight of their master, all the slaves rose timidly. As to Godegisele, she was in such a tremor that she was hardly able to rise from her stool. The count stopped for a moment at the threshold, leaned one hand against the door-case, and, with his body swaying backward and forward, let his eyes travel over the scared slaves with a besotted and semi-libidinous look. After repeated hiccoughs he called out to his wife's confidant:
"Morise—come—come, confounded wench!"
And looking at Godegisele he added:
"You look pale—you seem troubled—my dove. Why so pale?"
The poor creature's mind doubtlessly ran upon the circumstances of the fateful night when her husband strangled his fourth wife, shortly after having used these very words towards his then favorite slave: 'Come, come, confounded wench!' Neroweg's words threw his wife into greater perturbation and frightened her to a degree that all she was able to say was:
"Monseigneur! Monseigneur! Mercy!"
"What! What ails you? Answer!" shouted the count brutally. "Do you, perchance, object that I told Morise to come? Dare you cross me?"