Whatever the trials
and afflictions that might assail him, Hermanric possessed the healthful
elasticity of youth and the martial occupations of manhood to support
them. Goisvintha could repose on neither. With no employment but
bitter remembrance to engage her thoughts, with no kindly aspiration,
no soothing hope to fill her heart, she was abandoned irrevocably to the
influence of unpartaken sorrow and vindictive despair.
Both the woman and the warrior stood together in silence for some time.
At length, without taking his eyes from the dusky, irregular mass before
him, which was all that night now left visible of the ill-fated city,
Hermanric addressed Goisvintha thus:--
'Have you no words of triumph, as you look on the ramparts that your
people have fought for generations to behold at their mercy, as we now
behold them? Can a woman of the Goths be silent when she stands before
the city of Rome?'
'I came hither to behold Rome pillaged, and Romans slaughtered; what is
Rome blockaded to me?' replied Goisvintha fiercely.
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