And the ladies whose eyes grew misty in listening to the sad creature—these ladies in their endless circulation between court and chamber and chapel, with never a thought of galloping through fields, nor fighting nor hunting nor disputing nor reading the great dead philosophers nor swimming naked in a river whose current could grab their feet and throw them a mile, nothing but sewing and sighing over stories of courtly love, adultery, and secret suffering—these bony lady necks Marie could also imagine snapping in her huge hands.
