"That is mere sensual pleasure, which partly goes, but then love comes."
"That is only friendship when there is any."
"Quite right, noble sir, but friendship between those of opposite sex is just love. But there are so many things and so many sides to everything. If you like, I will relate a story which I have seen myself, and from which you may learn something or other. It happened in my youth, forty years ago, but I remember every detail as though it happened yesterday. Shall I relate it?"
"Certainly, preceptor. Time goes slowly when one waits for a favourable wind. But bring a light and wine before you begin, for I think your story will not keep one awake."
"Very likely not you, sir, but it has kept me awake many nights," answered Franciscus, and went to fetch what was required. When he had returned and they sat down again on their berths, he began as follows:
"This is the story of Herr Bengt's wife. She was born of noble parentage at the beginning of this century. She was strictly brought up, and, when her parents died, her guardian placed her in a convent. There she distinguished herself by her intense religious zeal; she scourged herself on Fridays and fasted on all the greater saint's days. When she reached the age of puberty, her condition became more serious, and she actually attempted to starve herself to death, believing it consistent with the duty of a Christian to kill the flesh and to live with God in Christ. Then two circumstances contributed to bring about a crisis in her life. Her guardian fled the country after having squandered her property, and the convent authorities changed their behaviour towards her, for it was a worldly institution which did not at all open its gates for the poor and wretched. When she saw that, she began to be assailed by doubts. Doubt was the disease of that time and she had a strong attack of it. Her fellow-nuns believed nothing and her superiors not much.
"One day she was sent from the convent to visit a sick person. On the way, a beautiful lonely forest path, she met a Knight, young, strong, and handsome. She stood and stared at him as though he had been a vision; he was the first man she had seen for five years, and the first man she had seen since she was a woman. He stopped his horse for a moment, greeted her, and rode on. After that day she was tired of the convent, and life enticed her. Life with its beauty and attraction drew her away from Christ; she had attacks of temptation and outbreaks, and had to spend most of her time in the punishment cell. One day she received a letter smuggled in by the gardener. It was from the Knight. He lived on the other side of the lake and she could see his castle from the window of the cell. The correspondence continued. Faint rumours began to be circulated that a great change in ecclesiastical affairs was about to take place and that even the convents were about to be abolished and the nuns released from their vows.
"Then hope awoke in her, but at the same time that she learnt that one could be released from vows, she lost faith in the sanctity of the vow itself, and at one stroke all restraint gave way. She believed now rather in the everlasting rights of her instincts in the face of all social and ecclesiastical laws!
"At last she was betrayed by a false friend, and the discovery of the correspondence led to her being condemned to corporal punishment. But Fate had ordered otherwise, and on the day that the punishment was to be carried out a messenger came from the King and estates of the realm with the command that the convent was to be closed. The messenger was no other than the Knight. He opened for her the doors of the convent in order to offer her freedom and his hand. That closed the first part of her career."
"The first?" remarked the Count, as he lifted the jar of Rhine wine. "Isn't the story over? They were married."