Suppose she should use the garland as a rope and venture to leap over it on this giddy height?
Suppose she should even succeed in turning around?
The rope was firm.

If her plan was successful, she would have accomplished something unprecedented; if she failed--if, while turning, she lost her balance--her scanty stock of pleasure here below would be over, and also her great grief and insatiable yearning.

One thing was certain: Lienhard would watch her breathlessly, nay, tremble for her.

Perhaps it was too much to hope that he would mourn her sincerely, should the leap cost her life; but he would surely pity her, and he could never forget the moment of the fall, and therefore herself.
Loni would tear the gold circlet from his dyed black locks and, in his exaggerated manner, call himself a son of misfortune, and her the greatest artist who had ever trodden the rope.

All Augsburg, all the dignitaries of the realm, even the Emperor, would pity her, and the end of her life would be as proud and as renowned as that of the chivalrous hero who dies victor on the stricken field.