Thereupon, without departing far from the truth, he related what was said about the beautiful Es in Nuremberg.

It was everywhere positively asserted that a knight belonging to the Emperor’s train had been caught at the Ortlieb mansion, either in a nocturnal interview or while climbing into the window.  Both sisters were said to be guilty.  But the sharpest arrows were aimed at Els, the betrothed bride of the son of a patrician family, whom many a girl would have been glad to wed.  That she preferred the foreigner, whether a Bohemian, a Swabian, or even a Swiss, made her error doubly shameful in the eyes of most persons.

Whenever Biberli had investigated the source of these evil tales, he had invariably found it to be Seitz Siebenburg, his retainers, the Eysvogel butler, or some man or maidservant in their employ.

The Vorchtels, who, as he knew from Katterle, would have had the most reason to cherish resentment against the Ortliebs, had no share in these slanders.

The shrewd fellow had discovered the truth, for after Seitz Siebenburg had wandered about in the open air during the storm, he again tried to see his wife.  But the effort was vain.  Neither entreaties nor threats would induce her to open the door.  Meanwhile it had grown late and, half frantic with rage, he went to the Duke of Pomerania’s quarters in the Green Shield to try his luck in gaming.  The dice were again moving rapidly, but no one grasped the box when he offered a stake.  No more insulting rebuff could be imagined, and the repulse which he received from his peers, and especially the duke, showed him that he was to be excluded from this circle.

He was taught at the same time that if he answered the challenge of the Swiss he would not be permitted to enter the lists.  Thus he confronted the impossibility of satisfying a demand of honour, and this terrible thought induced him to declare war against everything which honour had hitherto enjoined, and with it upon its guardians.

If they treated him as a robber and a dishonoured man, he would behave like one; but those who had driven him so far should suffer for it.

During the rest of the night and on the following day, until the gate was closed, he wandered, goblet in hand, only half conscious of what he was doing, from tavern to tavern, to tell the guests what he knew about the beautiful Es; and at every repetition of the accusations, of whose justice he was again fully convinced, his hatred against the sisters, and those who were their natural defenders and therefore his foes, increased.  Every time he repeated the old charges an addition increasing the slander was made and, as if aided by some mysterious ally, it soon happened that in various places his own inventions were repeated to him by the lips of others who had heard them from strangers.  True, he was often contradicted, sometimes violently but, on the whole, people believed him more readily than would have happened in the case of any other person; for every one admitted that, as the brother-in-law of the older E, he had a right to express his indignation in words.