"Then it shall be cleaned and put in order," continued Dame Hadwig. "Be quick, Praxedis, and see about it,--and to begin with, let us drive away these doves!"
Ekkehard ventured to put in a word on their behalf.
"Indeed!" said the Duchess, "you desire to be alone, and yet wish to keep doves! Shall we perhaps hang a lute on the wall, and strew rose-leaves into your wine? Well, they shall not be driven out; but they shall appear roasted on our supper-table, this evening."
Praxedis appeared, as if she heard nothing of all this.
"And what was that about the pure Greek?" enquired the Duchess. And Ekkehard simply told her the favour, he had asked of Praxedis. Upon this, the frown returned to Dame Hadwig's forehead. "If you are so very anxious to learn," said she, "you can ask me; for I also speak that language." Ekkehard made no objection, for in her speech there was a certain sharpness, which cut off all replies. The Duchess was strict and punctual in everything. A day or two, after Ekkehard's arrival, she worked out a plan, for learning the Latin language, and so it was settled that they should devote one hour each day to the grammar, and another to the reading of Virgil. This latter was looked forward to with great pleasure by Ekkehard. He intended to apply the whole of his faculties to the new study and to summon up all his erudition and knowledge, in order to make the task easy to the Duchess.
"It is certainly no useless work which the old poets have left behind," he said. "How difficult it would be to learn a language, if it were bequeathed to us, merely through a dictionary, like corn in a sack, which we should first have to grind into flour, and then to make into bread. Now the poet puts everything in its right place, and the whole is clothed in harmonious forms; so that what otherwise would prove a hard and tough matter for our teeth, we can now drink in like honey-dew."
To mitigate the bitterness of the grammar, Ekkehard could find no means. Every day he wrote a task for the Duchess on parchment, and she proved a very eager and industrious pupil; for each morning when the sun rose over the Bodensee, and cast its early rays on the Hohentwiel, she stood already at her window, learning her task; silently or loud as might be. Once her montonous reciting of amo, amas, amat, amamus etc. reached even Ekkehard's ear in his chamber.
Poor Praxedis was heavily afflicted, as the Duchess to heighten her own zeal, ordered her to learn always the same task with her, which she considered a great nuisance. Dame Hadwig, only a beginner herself, delighted in correcting her handmaiden, and was never so pleased, as when Praxedis took a substantive for an adjective, or conjugated an irregular verb as a regular one.
In the evening the Duchess came over to Ekkehard's room, where everything had to be ready for the reading of Virgil. Praxedis accompanied her, and as no dictionary was found amongst the books which Master Vincentius had left behind, Praxedis who was well-versed in the art of writing, was ordered to begin to make one, as Dame Hadwig did not know so much of that. "What would be the use of priests and monks," said she, "if everybody knew the art belonging to their profession? Let the blacksmiths wield the hammer, the soldiers the sword, and the scriveners the pen, and everyone stick to his own business." She had however well practised writing her name, in capital letters, artistically entwined; so that she could affix it, to all documents to which she put her seal, as sovereign of the land.
Praxedis cut up a big roll of parchment, into small leaves; drawing two lines on each, to make three divisions. After each lesson she wrote down the Latin words they had learned in one, the German in the next, and the Greek equivalent in the third column. This last was done by the Duchess's desire, in order to prove to Ekkehard, that they had acquired some knowledge, already before he came. Thus the lessons had fairly begun.