The Scholar turned away, the strong man sobbed. Magister Knips went to the door; there he stopped.
"I have the Homer of 1488; tell my mother to give you the book. Though the thought of me be painful, yet keep the book. It was a treasure to me."
The Magister closed the door and went slowly out of the house. The wind drove through the streets; it blew against the back of the Magister, and hastened his steps.
"It drives," murmured Knips again; "it drives me onward."
At the open square he remained standing in the wind; looking towards the clouds, which were passing in hasty flight beneath the moon. Distorted figures hovered in the grey vapor and glided over his head. He thought of the last proof-sheets which he had read in his native town, and spoke some Greek words; they were verses from the Eumenides of Æschylus:--
"Rush on! rush on! rush on! ye messengers of vengeance!"
He went up to the castle, and remained standing before the lighted windows; the four black steeds which brought the Sovereign back from the tower castle to the city dashed past him, and he clenched his bony fist at the carriage. He then ran round the castle to the park side. There, against a tree, beneath the windows of the Sovereign's apartment, he cowered; looked up to the castle, and again raised his fist against the lord of it, and sighed. He looked up at the dark boughs that towered over him, gazed at the sky and the grey flitting shadows which coursed along under the moon, and desperate thoughts passed through his mind:
"When the moon vanishes that will be a token to me also."
He looked long at the moon. Amidst his wild thoughts a Latin sentence entered his confused brain: "'The moon and the earth are but as little points in the universe;' that is beautifully said by Ammianus Marcellinus. I have compared the manuscripts of this Roman; I have made conjectures on all sides with respect to his mutilated text; I have pored for years over him. If I do here, in order to vex this ignorant lord, what was done to Haman, all this preparation for my Roman would be lost."
He rushed from under the trees and ran to his dwelling. There he collected all his possessions, put his small copy of Ammianus into his pocket, and hastened with his bundle to the gate.