Wiborad the Recluse.
The one who was least of all delighted, by the arrival of the
unexpected guests, was Romeias the gate-keeper. He had a presentiment,
what part of the trouble was likely to fall to his share, but he did
not yet know the whole of it. Whilst the abbot received the Duchess,
Gerold the steward, came up to him and said:
"Romeias prepare to go on an errand. You are to tell the people on the
different farms, to send in the fowls that are due, before evening, as
they will be wanted at the feast, and besides you are to procure as
much game as possible."
This order pleased Romeias well. It was not the first time that he had
been to ask for fowls, and yeomen and farmers held him in great
respect, as he had a commanding manner of speaking. Hunting was at all
times the delight of his heart, and so Romeias took his spear, hung the
cross-bow over his shoulder, and was just going to call out a pack of
hounds, when Gerold pulled his sleeve and said: "Romeias, one thing
more! You are to accompany the duchess' waiting-women, who have been
forbidden to enter the monastery, to the Schwarza-Thal, and present
them to the pious Wiborad, who is to entertain them as pleasantly as
may be, until the evening. And you are to be very civil, Romeias, and I
tell you there is a Greek maid amongst them with the darkest eyes
imaginable ..."
On hearing this, a deep frown of displeasure darkened Romeias's
forehead, and vehemently thrusting his spear to the ground he
exclaimed: "I am to accompany womenfolk? That is none of the business
of the gate-keeper of St. Gallus's monastery--" but Gerold with a
significant nod towards him, continued: "Well, Romeias, you must try to
do your best; and have you never heard that watchmen, who have
faithfully performed their missions, have found an ample jug of wine in
their room of an evening,--eh, Romeias?"
The discontented face brightened up considerably, and so he went down
to let out the hounds. The blood-hound and the beagle jumped up gaily,
and the little beaver-puppy also set up a joyous bark, hoping to be
taken out likewise; but with a contemptuous kick it was sent back, for
the hunter had nothing to do with fish-ponds and their inhabitants.
Surrounded by his noisy pack of hounds, Romeias strode out of the gate.
Praxedis and the other waiting-women of the Duchess, had dismounted
from their horses and seated themselves on a grassy slope, chatting
away about monks and cowls and beards, as well as about the strange
caprices of their mistress, when Romeias suddenly appeared before them
and said: "Come on!"
Praxedis looked at the rough sports-man, and not quite knowing, what to
make of him, pertly said: "Where to, my good friend?"--
Romeias however merely lifted his spear and pointing with it to a
neighbouring hill behind the woods, held his tongue.
Then Praxedis called out: "Is speech such a rare article in St. Gall,
that you do not answer properly when questioned?"
The other maids giggled, upon which Romeias said solemnly: "May you all
be swallowed up by an earthquake, seven fathom deep."
"We are very much obliged to you, good friend," was Praxedis's reply,
and the necessary preliminaries for a conversation being thus made,
Romeias informed them of the commission he had received, and the women
followed him willingly enough.
After some time the gate-keeper found out, that it was not the hardest
work to accompany such guests, and when the Greek maid, desired to know
something about his business and sport, his tongue got wonderfully
loosened and he even related his great adventure with the terrible
boar, into whose side he had thrown his spear and yet had not been able
to kill it, for one of its feet would have loaded a cart, and its hair
stood up as high as a pine-tree, and its teeth were twelve feet long at
the least. After this he grew still more civil, for when the Greek once
stopped, to listen to the warbling of a thrush, he waited also
patiently enough, though a singing-bird was too miserable a piece of
game for him to give much heed to; and when Praxedis bent down for a
pretty brass-beetle, crawling about in the moss, Romeias politely tried
to push it towards her, with his heavy boot, and when in doing so he
crushed it instead, this was certainly not his intention.
They climbed up a wild, steep wood-path, beside which the
Schwarza-brook flowed over jagged rocks. On that slope the holy Gallus
had once fallen into some thorny bushes, and had said to his companion,
who wanted to lift him up: "Here let me lie, for here shall be my
resting-place and my abode for ever."
They had walked far, before they came to a clearing in the fir-wood,
where leaning against the sheltering rocks stood a simple chapel in the
shape of a cross. Close to it a square little stone-hut was built
against the rock in which but one tiny window with a wooden shutter,
was to be seen. Opposite there stood another hut exactly like it,
having also but one little window.
It was customary at that time for those who inclined to the monastic
life, and who as St. Benedict expressed himself, felt strong enough to
fight with the Devil, without the assistance of pious companions, to
have themselves immured in that way. They were called "Reclausi" that
is Walled-in, and their usefulness and aim in life, may well be
compared to that of the pillar-saints in Egypt. The sharp winds of
winter, and frequent fall of snow, rendered their exposure in the open
air somewhat impossible, but the longing for an anchorite's life, was
nevertheless quite as strong.
Within those four walls on Erin-hill there lived the Sister Wiborad, a
far-famed recluse of her time. She came from Klingnau in Aargau, and
had been a proud and prudish virgin, learned in many an art; besides
being able to recite all the Psalms in the Latin tongue, which she had
learnt from her brother Hitto. She was not however quite opposed to the
idea of sweetening the life of some man or other, but the flower of the
youth at Aargau did not find grace in her eyes; and one day she set out
on a pilgrimage to Rome. There in the holy city her restless mind must
have undergone some great shock, but none of her contemporaries ever
knew in what way. For three entire days her brother Hitto ran up and
down the Forum through the halls of the Colliseum, and the triumphal
arch of Constantine to the four-faced Janus near the Tiber, seeking for
his sister and not finding her, and on the morning of the fourth day,
she walked in by the Salarian gate, carrying her head very high, and
whilst her eyes gleamed strangely she said, that things would not be
right in the world until the due amount of veneration was shown unto
St. Martin.
After returning to her home, she bequeathed all her wealth to the
bishop's church at Constance, on condition that a great festival in
honor of St. Martin, should be held every year on the 11th of November.
Then she went to live in a small house where the holy Zilia had lived
before, and there led a hermit's life, until she grew dissatisfied, and
betook herself to the valley of St. Gallus. The bishop himself
accompanied her, put the black veil on her head with his own hands, and
after leading her into the cell, he laid the first stone with which the
entrance was closed up. Then he pronounced his blessing, imprinting his
seal four times into the lead, which joined the stones together, whilst
the monks who had accompanied him, chaunted sad solemn strains, as if
someone was being buried.
The people thereabout held the recluse in great honour. They called her
a "hard-forged Saint" and on many a Sunday they flocked to the meadow
before her cell, and listened to Wiborad, who stood preaching at her
window, and several women went to live in her neighbourhood, to be
instructed in all the virtues.
"We have arrived at the place of our destination," said Romeias, upon
which Praxedis and her companions looked about in every direction; but
not a human being was to be seen. Only some belated butterflies and
beetles buzzed drowsily in the sunshine and the cricket chirped
merrily, hidden in the grass. The shutter at Wiborad's window was
almost shut, so that but a scanty ray of sunshine could penetrate; and
from within came the monotonous hollow tones of a person chaunting
psalms, with a somewhat nasal sound, breaking the silence without.
Romeias knocked against the shutter with his spear, but this had no
effect on the psalm-chaunting individual inside. Then the gate-keeper
said: "We must try some other way of rousing her attention."
Romeias was rather a rough sort of man, or he would not have behaved as
he did.
He began singing a song, such as he often sang to amuse the
cloister-pupils, when they managed to steal off into his watch-tower,
there to plague him, by pulling his beard or by making all sorts of
absurd noises on his big horn. It was one of those ditties, which from
the time that the German tongue was first spoken, have been sung by the
thousand, on hills and highroads, beneath hedges and woody dells, and
the wind has carried them on and spread them further. The words of this
were as follows:
"I know an oak-tree fair to see,
In yonder shady grove,
There bills and coos the lifelong day
A beautiful wild dove.
I know a rock in yonder vale,
Around which bats are flitting
There, old and hoary in her nest
An ugly owl is sitting.
The wild dove is my heart's delight,
And with a song I greet it;
The arrow keep I for the owl
To kill it when I meet it."
This song had about the same effect, as if Romeias had thrown a heavy
stone against the shutter. Instantly there appeared a figure at the
little window, from the withered and scraggy neck of which, rose a
ghastly woman's head, in whose countenance the mouth had assumed a
rather hostile position towards the nose. A dark veil hid the rest, and
bending out of the little window as far as she could, she cried out
with ominously gleaming eyes: "Art thou come back, Satanas?"
Romeias then advanced a few steps and said complacently: "Nay, the Evil
One does not know such fine songs as Romeias, the monastery's
gate-keeper. Calm yourself Sister Wiborad, I bring you some dainty
damsels, whom the Abbot warmly recommends to your kind reception."
"Take yourselves off, ye deceiving phantoms!" screamed the recluse. "I
know the snares of the Tempter. Hence, begone!"
But Praxedis now approached the window, and humbly dropping a low
curtsey to the old hag, explained to her that she did not come from
hell, but from the Hohentwiel. Showing that the Greek maiden could be a
little deceitful, she added, that she had already heard so much of the
great piety of the far-famed Sister Wiborad, that she had availed
herself of the first opportunity of paying her a visit, though the fact
was, that she had before that day never heard about the cell and its
inhabitant.
After this the wrinkles on Wiborad's forehead began somewhat to
disappear. "Give me thy hand, stranger," said she, stretching her arm
out of the window, which as the sleeve fell back, could be seen in all
its skinny leanness.
Praxedis held up her right hand, and as the recluse touched with her
dry fingers the soft warm hand with its throbbing pulses, she became
slowly convinced, that the young girl was a being of flesh and blood.
Romeias on perceiving this change for the better rolled some big stones
under the window of the cell. "In two hours I shall be back to fetch
you;--God bless you, virgins all," he said aloud and then added in a
whisper to the Greek maid,--"and don't be frightened if she should fall
into one of her trances."
Whistling to his dogs he then quickly strode towards the wood. The
first thirty steps or so, he got on without any impediment; but then he
suddenly stopped; and turning first his shaggy head round, and then the
whole body, he stood leaning on his spear, intently gazing at the spot
before the cell, as if he had lost something there. Yet he had
forgotten nothing.
Praxedis smiled and kissed her hand to the rudest of all gate-keepers.
Then Romeias quickly turned round again, shouldered his spear,--dropped
it, took it up again, then stumbled and finally managed to complete his
retreat, after which he vanished behind the moss-grown stems.
"Oh thou child of the world, groping in darkness," scolded the recluse,
"what meant that movement of thy hand?"
"A mere jest," replied Praxedis innocently.
"A downright sin," cried Wiborad in rough accents, so that Praxedis
started,--and then continuing with her preaching added: "Oh the Devil's
works and delusions! There you cast your eyes slily about until they
enter a man's heart like lightning, and kiss your hands to him as if
that were nothing! Is it nought that he looks back who ought to be
looking forwards? No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking
back, is fit for the kingdom of God. 'A jest?' O give me hyssop to take
away your sin, and snow to wash you clean!"
"I did not think of that," admitted Praxedis deeply blushing.
"That is the misery, that you do not think of so many things;"--then
looking at Praxedis from head to foot she continued, "neither do you
think that wearing a bright green garment, and all such flaring colours
are an abomination unto those, who have banished all worldly thoughts;
and that thy girdle is tied so loosely and negligently round thy waist,
as if thou wert a public dancer. Watch and pray!"
Leaving the window for a few moments, the recluse returned presently,
and held out a coarsely twisted cord.
"I have pity on thee, poor turtle-dove," she said. "Tear off thy silken
finery and receive herewith the girdle of self-denial, from Wiborad's
own hand; and let it be a warning to thee, to have done with all vain
talkings and doings. And when thou feelest the temptation again to kiss
thy hand to the gate-keeper of a monastery, turn thy head eastwards and
chaunt the psalm, 'Oh Lord, deliver me from evil!'--and if even then
peace will not come to thee, then light a wax-candle and hold thy
forefinger over the flame, and thou wilt be saved; for fire alone,
cures fire."
Praxedis cast down her eye.
"Your words are bitter," she said.
"Bitter!" exclaimed the recluse. "Praised be the Lord that my lips do
not taste of sweets! The mouth of saints must be bitter. When Pachomius
sat in the desert, the angel of the Lord came unto him, took the leaves
from a laurel-tree, and writing some holy words of prayer thereon, gave
them to Pachomius and said: 'Swallow these leaves, and though they will
be as bitter as gall in thy mouth, they will make thy heart overflow
with true wisdom.' And Pachomius took the leaves and ate them, and from
that moment his tongue became bitter, but his heart was filled with
sweetness, and he praised the Lord."
Praxedis said nothing, and there ensued a silence which was not
interrupted for some time. The other maids of the Duchess had all
vanished, for when the recluse had handed out her girdle, they nudged
each other and then quietly glided away. They were now gathering
bunches of heather and other autumnal flowers, giggling at what they
had witnessed.
"Shall we also put on such a belt?" said one of them.
"Yes, when the sun rises black," replied the other.
Praxedis had put the cord into the grass.
"I do not like robbing you of your girdle," she now said shyly.
"Oh, the simplicity," exclaimed Wiborad, "the girdle that we wear is no
child's play like the one, that I gave thee. The girdle of Wiborad is
an iron hoop with blunted spikes,--it clinks like a chain and cuts into
the flesh,--thou wouldst shudder at the mere sight of it."
Praxedis gazed towards the wood, as if spying whether Romeias was not
yet to be seen. The recluse probably noticed that her guest did not
feel particularly comfortable, and now held out to her a board, on
which lay about half a dozen of reddish green crab-apples.
"Does time pass by slowly for thee, child of the world?" she
said.--"There, take these, if words of grace do not satisfy thee. Cakes
and sweet-meats have I none, but these apples are fair in the sight of
the Lord. They are the nourishment of the poor."
The Greek maid knew what politeness required. But they were
crab-apples, and after having, with an effort swallowed the half of
one, her pretty mouth looked awry, and involuntary tears started into
her eyes.
"How dost thou like them?" cried the recluse. Then Praxedis feigned as
if the remaining half fell by chance from her hand. "If the Creator had
made all apples as acid as these," she said with a sour-sweet smile,
"Eve would never have eaten of the apple."
Wiborad was offended. "Tis well," said she, "that thou dost not forget
the story of Eve. She had the same tastes as thou, and therefore sin
has come into the world."
The Greek maid looked up at the sky but not from emotion. A solitary
hawk flew in circles over Wiborad's hut. "Oh that I could fly with
thee, away to the Bodensee," she thought. Archly shaking her pretty
head she then enquired: "What must I do, to become as perfect as you
are?"
"To renounce the world entirely," replied Wiborad, "is a grace from
above, which we poor mortals can't acquire by ourselves. Fasting,
drinking of pure water, castigating the flesh and reciting of
psalms,--all these are mere preparations. The most important thing is
to select a good patron-saint. We women are but frail creatures, but
fervent prayer brings the champions of God to our side, to assist us.
Imagine, before this little window, there he often stands in lonely
nights,--he, whom my heart has elected, the valiant Bishop Martin, and
he holds out his lance and shield, to protect me from the raging
devils. An aureole of blue flames crowns his head, flashing through the
darkness like summer-lightning, and as soon as he appears the demons
fly away shrieking. And when the battle is over, then he enters into
friendly communion with me. I tell him all that weighs on my poor
heart;--all the grief which my neighbours cause me, and the wrong which
I suffer from the cloister-folk; and the Saint nods to me and shakes
his curly head, and all that I tell him, he carries to heaven and
repeats it to his friend the Archangel Michael, who keeps watch every
Monday, before the throne of God Almighty. There it comes before the
right ear, and Wiborad the last of the least is not forgotten...."
"Then I shall also choose St. Martin to become my patron-saint,"
exclaimed Praxedis. But this had not been the drift of Wiborad's
praises. She threw a contemptuous half jealous look on the rosy cheeks
of the young girl. "The Lord pardon thee, thy presumption!" cried she
with folded hands "dost thou believe that this can be done with a
flippant word and smooth face? Indeed! Many long years have I striven
and fasted until my face became wrinkled and furrowed,--and he did not
favour me even with one single look! He is a high and mighty Saint and
a valiant soldier of the Lord, who only looks on long tried champions."
"He will not rudely shut his ears against my prayers," exclaimed
Praxedis.
"But thou shalt not pray to him," cried Wiborad angrily. "What has he
to do with thee? For such as thou art, there are other patron-saints. I
will name thee one. Choose thou the pious Father Pachomius for
thyself."
"Him, I don't know," said Praxedis.
"Bad enough, and it is high time for you to make his acquaintance. He
was a venerable hermit who lived in the Theban desert, nourishing
himself with wild roots and locusts. He was so pious that he heard
during his lifetime, the harmony of the spheres and planets and often
said: 'If all human beings would hear, what has blessed my ears, they
would forsake house and land; and he who had put on the right shoe,
would leave the left one behind, and hasten hither.' Now in the town of
Alexandria there was a maid, whose name was Thais, and nobody could
tell, which was greater, her beauty or her frivolity. Then Pachomius
said unto himself 'Such a woman is a plague for the whole Egyptian
land,' and after cutting his beard and anointing himself he mounted a
crocodile, which by prayer he had made subservient to himself, and on
its scaly back was carried down the Nile; and then he went to Thais, as
if he also were an admirer of hers. His big stick, which was a
palmtree, he had taken with him, and he managed to shake the heart of
the sinner so, as to make her burn her silken robes, as well as her
jewels, and she followed Pachomius, as a lamb does the shepherd. Then
he shut her up in a rocky grave, leaving only a tiny window in it;
instructed her in prayer, and after five years her purification was
completed, and four angels carried her soul up to heaven."
This story did not impress Praxedis very favourably.
"The old hermit with his rough beard and bitter lips is not good enough
for her," she thought, "and therefore I am to take him for myself," but
she did not dare to give utterance to these thoughts.
At this moment the curfew bell began to ring in the monastery, and at
this signal the recluse stepped back into her chamber and closed her
shutter. The hollow sound of psalm-chanting was heard again,
accompanied by the noise of falling strokes. She was flagellating
herself.
Meanwhile Romeias had begun his sport in the distant wood, and thrown
his spear--but he had mistaken the trunk of a felled oak for a young
deer. Angrily he pulled out his weapon from the tenacious wood;--it was
the first time in his life, that such a thing had happened to him.
Before Wiborad's cell total silence reigned for a considerable length
of time, and when her voice was again heard, it was quite altered; the
tones being fuller and vibrating with passion: "Come down unto me, holy
Martin; valiant champion of God; thou consolation of my solitude; thou
light in my darkness. Descend unto me, for my soul is ready to receive
thee and my eyes are thirsting for thee."--
After this there ensued a pause, and then Praxedis started with
terror.--A hollow shriek had come from within. She pushed open the
shutter and looked in. The recluse was prostrated on her knees, her
arms extended beseechingly, and her eyes had a fixed, stony expression.
Beside her lay the scourge.
"For God's sake," cried Praxedis, "what is the matter with you?"
Wiborad jumped up and pressed the hand, which the Greek maid extended
to her, convulsively. "Child of Earth," said she in broken accents,
"that has been deemed worthy to witness the agonies of Wiborad,--strike
thy bosom; for a token has been given. He, the elected of my soul has
not come; offended that his name has been profaned by unholy lips; but
the holy Gallus has appeared to my soul's eye,--he who as yet has never
deigned to visit my cell, and his countenance was that of a sufferer
and his garments were torn, and half burnt. That means that his
monastery is threatened by some great disaster. We must pray that his
disciples may not stumble in the path of righteousness."
Bending her head out of the window she called out, "Sister Wendelgard!"
Then the shutter was opened on the opposite cell and an aged face
appeared. The face belonged to good Dame Wendelgard, who in that
fashion was mourning for her spouse, who had never returned from the
last wars.
"Sister Wendelgard," said Wiborad, "let us sing three times 'Be
merciful to us, oh Lord.'"
But the Sister Wendelgard had just been indulging in loving thoughts of
her noble spouse. She still harboured an unalterable conviction, that
some day he would return to her from the land of the Huns, and she
would have liked best, there and then to leave her cell, to go and meet
him.
"It is not the time for psalm-singing," she replied.
"So much the more acceptable, the voluntary devotion, rises up to
Heaven," said Wiborad, after which she intoned the said psalm, with her
rough unmelodious voice. But the expected response did not come. "Why
dost thou not join me in singing David's song?"
"Because I don't wish to do so," was Sister Wendelgard's unceremonious
reply. The fact was, that during the many years of her seclusion she
had at last grown weary of it. Many thousand psalms had she sung at
Wiborad's bidding, in order to induce St. Martin to deliver her
husband, out of the hands of the infidels; but the sun rose and set
daily--and yet he never came. And so she had begun to dislike her gaunt
neighbour, with her visions and phantasms.
Wiborad however turned her eyes upwards, like one who thinks he can
discover a comet in clear day-light. "Oh thou vessel, full of iniquity
and wickedness!" she cried, "I will pray for thee, that the evil
spirits may be banished from thee. Thine eye is blind as thy mind is
dark."
But the other quietly replied: "Judge not, that thou be not judged. My
eyes are as clear as they were a year ago, when in a moon-shiny night,
they beheld you getting out of your window, and going away Heaven knows
where;--and my mind still refuses to believe, that prayers coming from
such a mouth can work miracles."
Then Wiborad's pale face became distorted, as if she had bitten a
pebble. "Woe to thee, whom the Devil has deluded!" screamed she and a
flood of scolding words streamed from her lips; but her neighbour knew
well how to answer her with similar missiles.
Quicker and quicker the words came, confusing and mixing themselves
together, whilst the rocky walls threw back unharmonious echoes, and
frightened a pair of little owlets, which leaving their cranny nest
flew away screeching ... in truth at the famous quarrel beneath the
portal of the cathedral at Worms, when the two queens[4] were scolding
and upbraiding each other, the volubility and anger exhibited were not
to be compared to that of the pious recluses.
In mute astonishment Praxedis stood listening to the noise, secretly
wishing to interfere and make peace; but then a soft thing fares ill
between two sharp ones.
But now the merry notes of a horn, intermingled with the loud barking
of dogs was heard from the wood, and a moment later, the tall majestic
figure of Romeias could be seen also, approaching slowly.
The second time that he had thrown the spear, it had not hit a tree,
but a magnificent stag of ten antlers, which now hung over his
shoulder; and besides this, he carried fastened to his belt, six hares
which had been caught in snares.
On beholding the fight before him, the sportsman's heart rejoiced
mightily. Without saying a word, he loosened two of the living hares,
and swinging one in each hand, he threw them so dexterously into the
narrow little windows, that Wiborad suddenly feeling the soft fur
brushing past her head, started back with a loud scream. The brave
Sister Wendelgard likewise got a great shock, for her black habit had
loosened itself in the heat of battle, and the wretched little hare,
getting entangled therein, and trying to discover an outlet, caused her
no small fright. So both stopped their scolding, closed the shutters,
and there was silence again on Erin-hill.
"We'll go home," said Romeias to the Greek maid, "for it is getting
late." Praxedis who was not over pleased, either by the quarrelling or
Romeias' way of making peace, had no desire to stay any longer. Her
companions had gone back some time ago, following their own
inclinations.
"Hares must be of small value here, as you throw them away in such an
unmannerly way," she said.
"True, they are not worth much," Romeias rejoined laughingly, "yet the
present deserved thanks at least."
Whilst still speaking, the dormer-window of Wiborad's roof opened;
about half of her gaunt lean figure became visible, and a stone of some
weight, flew over Romeias head, without hitting him. That was her way
of thanking him for the hare.
From this can be seen, that the forms of social intercourse differed
somewhat from the present fashions.
Praxedis expressed her astonishment.
"Oh, such things happen about once a week," explained Romeias. "A
moderate overflow of gall, gives new strength to such old hags, and it
is doing them a kindness, if one helps them to effect such a crisis."
"But she is a saint," said Praxedis shyly.
After first murmuring some unintelligible words in his beard, Romeias
said: "Well, she ought to be thankful if she is one, and I am not going
to tear off her garb of sanctity. But since I was at Constance on a
visit to my mother, I have heard many a tale, that's not quite as it
ought to be. It has not yet been forgotten in those parts, how she had
to defend herself before the bishop on account of this and that which
is none of my business; and the Constance merchants will tell you,
without your asking them, that the recluses near the cathedral have
lent them money, given to them by pious pilgrims, on usurious interest.
It was not my fault, that once, when I was still a boy, I found in a
quarry a strange big pebble. When I knocked it to pieces with my
hammer, there was a toad in the middle, looking very much astonished.
Since then I know what a recluse is like. Snip-snap--trari-trara!"
Romeias accompanied his new friend to the house which lay beyond the
cloister-walls and which was destined to receive her. Before it, the
other maids were standing, and the posy of wild flower's they had
gathered lay on a stone table before the door.
"We must say Good-bye," said the gate-keeper.
"Farewell," said Praxedis.
He then went away, and after going thirty steps suddenly turned
round,--but the sun does not rise twice in one day; least of all for
the keeper of a cloister-gate! No hand was being kissed to him.
Praxedis had entered the house. Then Romeias slowly walked back, and
without troubling himself to ask leave, hastily took up the flowers
from the stone table, and went away. The stag and four hares he brought
to the kitchen. After this he toiled up to his room in the watch-tower,
fastened the nosegay to the wall with the help of a nail, and taking a
piece of charcoal, drew a heart under it, which had two eyes, a long
stroke in lieu of a nose, and a cross-line for a mouth.
He had just finished this, when the cloister-pupil Burkhard came up,
bent upon amusing himself. Romeias seized him with a powerful grasp,
held out the charcoal and placing him before the wall, said: "There,
write the name under it!"
"What name?" asked the boy.
"Hers," commanded Romeias.
"What do I know about her, and her name," testily replied the pupil.
"There one can see again, what is the use of studying," grumbled
Romeias. "Every day the boy sits for eight hours behind his
asses'-skins and does not know the name of a strange damsel!" ...