Paul smiled but did not answer this question. "Unfortunately we are in want of many necessaries," said he. "Our vinegar is all consumed, all sweat-exciting herbs have been plucked from the mountains; we want lime to spread over the corpses and render the exhalations innocuous. We have now to make large fires, and these are costly and take up time."
"You can have all these things from me," replied the physician. "Here is a list I have made of all the things which we bring you," and he pulled a paper out of his pocket. Paul cast a look at it, then stared fixedly with a look of sudden horror at the handwriting. "Did you write this yourself?" he asked in a tone, as if life and death were depending on the answer.
"Certainly, why do you ask." The priest's hand trembled. "Is that your handwriting?" repeated Paul looking anxiously towards Erastus. The physician did not understand what the priest meant. Convulsively did the young man compose himself. "I will mark out what we require," murmured he absently and left the room in evident confusion. Erastus looked after the strange young man with a shake of the head; he had expected that Paul would have rejoiced at receiving the articles, which he gave gratuitously to the patients.
Once outside the young priest pulled out the physician's list and examined it tremblingly. "There is no doubt," he muttered to himself, "the strokes are the same, as those which Pigavetta caused me to imitate, and Herr Adam, to whom his dictation was addressed, was none other than the heretical Parson Adam Neuser. But he threw the paper before my eyes into the street. Was it the same after all?" and with an expression of despair Paul sank down near the round window of the cloister and gazed gloomily out. "How the vipers of repentance, which for a time had curled up in some dark corner, bite once more? How again the old chain works its way into the flesh?" Should he warn Erastus. He sank into a melancholy train of thought, but could arrive at no determination. At last he shook it away from him. "Let us think of the misery of to-day. Should to-morrow another misfortune arise, it will be time enough. God's mercy does not let every seed of wickedness germinate, which we may have sown unthinkingly, and around me here there is sufficient misery, to requite by good to many, the evil which I have caused to many." Then he arose, so as to prepare himself in his chamber, for the service which he held for the sick every evening in the Church.
The physician wearied by his exertions of the day, remained for a while longer in the Refectorium, and thought over his glass of wine about the young man, for whom he now felt so great an admiration. Shortly an old peasant woman, with white hair and a calm peaceful countenance appeared balancing a basket full of herbs on her head. After setting down her basket, and wiping the perspiration from her brow, she began to pull out and sort the herbs.
"You must be very glad that the Heidelberg clergyman came among you?" said Erastus opening a conversation.
"Glad?" replied the old woman, "it was he who saved us."
"Yes indeed, when one compares Petersthal with your village, one must admire the man."
"If you had only witnessed, how he performed the miracle on the Kreuzwiese, you would speak in quite another way."
"What sort of miracle, mother?"