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...."