“Don’t you wish to know what the device means?  Look, a serpent biting its own tail.”

“Aha!” replied the Junker, “the symbol of self-torment.”

“Good, good!  But it has another meaning, which you would do well to notice, Sir Knight.  Do you know the signification of eternity and eternal faith?”

“No, Fraulein, I wasn’t taught to think so deeply at Jena.”

“Of course.  Your teachers were men.  Men and faith, eternal faith!”

“Was Delilah, who betrayed Samson to the Philistines, a man or a woman?” asked Van Hout.

“She was a woman.  The exception, that proves the rule.  Isn’t that so, Maria?”

The burgomaster’s wife made no reply except a silent nod; then indignantly pushed back her chair, and the meal was over.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

Drinking is also an art, and the Germans are masters of it
Here the new custom of tobacco-smoking was practised
Standing still is retrograding
To whom fortune gives once, it gives by bushels
Youth calls ‘much,’ what seems to older people ‘little’

*** End of the project gutenberg EBOOK burgomaster’s wife, by Ebers, V4 ***

*********** This file should be named g142v10.txt or g142v10.zip **********

Corrected editions of our eBooks get a new number, g142v11.txt versions based on separate sources get new letter, g142v10a.txt

This eBook was produced by David Widger widger@cecomet.net

Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the us unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.  Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.  The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:  http://gutenberg.net or http://promo.net/pg

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).

Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.