And yet they say faith and love and humility are more really hard than all the old penances and good works.
But that must be, I think, to people who have never heard, as we have from Dr. Luther, so much about God to make us love him; or to people who have more to be proud of than Chriemhild and I and so find it more difficult to think little of themselves.
XXIV.
Eva's Story.
Wittemberg, October, 1522.
How strange it seemed at first to be moving freely about in the world once more, and to come back to the old home at Wittemberg! Very strange to find the places so little changed, and the people so much. The little room where Elsè and I used to sleep, with scarcely an article of furniture altered, except that Thekla's books are there instead of Elsè's wooden crucifix; and the same view over the little garden, with its pear-tree full of white blossoms, to the Elbe with bordering oaks and willows, all then in their freshest delicate early green; while the undulations of the level land faded in soft blues to the horizon.
But, unlike the convent, all the changes in the people seemed to have been wrought by the touch of life rather than by that of death.
In Elsè's own home across the street, the ringing of those sweet childish voices, so new to me, and yet familiar with echoes of old tones and looks of our own well-remembered early days! And on Elsè herself the change seemed only such as that which develops the soft tints of spring into the green of shadowing leaves.
Christopher has grown from the self-assertion of boyhood into the strength and protecting kindness of manhood. Uncle Cotta's blindness seems to dignify him and make him the central object of every one's tender, reverent care, while his visions grow brighter in the darkness, and more placid on account of his having no responsibility as to fulfilling them. He seems to me a kind of hallowing presence in the family, calling out every one's sympathy and kindness, and pathetically reminding us by his loss of the preciousness of our common mercies.