[Gunzo verso Ekkehard.]
During the time in which all that has been told until now, was happening on the shores of the Bodensee, far away in the Belgian lands, in the monastery of the holy Amandus sur l'Elnon, a monk had been sitting in his cell. Day after day, whenever the convent rules permitted it, he sat there transfixed as by a spell. The rough and cheerless winter time had come; all the rivers were frozen up, and snow covered the plain as far as eye could see,--he scarcely noticed it. Spring followed and drove away winter,--he heeded it not. The brothers talked of war, and evil tidings, which had reached them from the neighbouring Rhine-lands,--but he had no time to listen to these tales.
In his cell, every article of furniture, nay even the floor was covered with parchments, for almost all the monastery's books had emigrated to his chamber. There, he sat reading and thinking, and reading again, as if he wanted to find out the first cause of all being. On his right, lay the psalms and holy Scriptures; on his left the remains of heathenish wisdom. Everything he peered over assiduously; now and then, a malicious smile interrupting the seriousness of his studies, upon which he would hastily scribble down some lines, on a narrow strip of parchment. Were these, grains of gold and precious stones, which he dug out of the mines of ancient wisdom? No.
"What on earth, can be the matter with brother Gunzo?" said his fellow-monks amongst themselves. "In former times his tongue rattled on like a millwheel, and the books were seldom disturbed in their rest, by him; for, did he not often say with boasting mien: 'They can only tell me, what I know already?'--and now? Why, now his pen hurries on, sputtering and scratching, so that you may bear the noise it makes, even in the cross-passage. Does he hope to become notary or prime minister of the Emperor? Is he trying to find the philosopher's stone, or is he perhaps writing down, his journey in Italy?"
But brother Gunzo, continued his labours undisturbed, whatever they were. Untiringly he emptied his jug of water and read his classics. The first thunder-storms came, telling of summer's heat; but he let thunder and lightning do as they pleased, without minding them. His slumbers at night were sometimes broken by his rushing up to his inkstand, as if he had caught some good ideas in his dreams; but often they had vanished before he had succeeded in writing them down. Still his perseverance in trying to attain his aim, never wavered, and consoling himself with the prophetic words of Homer: "Yet though it tarry long, the day is certainly coming," he crept back to his couch.
Gunzo was in the prime of life; of moderate height and portly dimensions. When he stood before his well-polished metal mirror in the early morning, and gazed somewhat longer than was necessary, on his own image, he would often stroke his reddish beard with a threatening gesture, as if he were going out there and then, to fight in single combat.
In his veins, flowed Franconian as well as Gallic blood, and this latter gave him something of the liveliness and sprightliness, which is wanting in all those of pure Teutonic race. For this reason, he had bitten and torn a good many more goose quills, whilst writing, than any monk in a German monastery would have done, besides holding many a soliloquy, in the same space of time. In spite of this he mastered the natural restlessness of his body, and forced his feet to keep quiet, under the heavily laden writing desk.
On a soft, balmy summer evening, when his pen had again flitted over the patient parchment, like a will-o'-the-wisp, emitting a soft creaking sound, it suddenly began to slacken its pace,--then made a pause; a few strokes more, and then he executed a tremendous flourish on the remaining space below, so that the ink made an involuntary shower of spots, like black constellations. He had written the word finis, and with a deep sigh of relief he rose from his chair, like a man from whose mind, some great weight has been taken. Casting a long look on that which lay before him, black on white, he solemnly exclaimed, "praised be the holy Amandus! we are avenged!"
At this great and elevating moment, he had finished a libel, dedicated to the venerable brotherhood on the Reichenau, and aimed at,--Ekkehard the custodian at St. Gall. When the fair-haired interpreter of Virgil took leave of his monastery, and went to the Hohentwiel, he never, though he searched the remotest corners of his memory, had an inkling of the fact, that there was a man living, whose greatest wish and desire was to take vengeance on him; for he was inoffensive and kindhearted, never willingly hurting a fly. And yet so it was, for between Heaven and Earth, and especially in the minds of learned men, many things will happen, which the reason of the reasonable, never dreams of.
History has its caprices, both in preserving and destroying. The German songs and epics, which the great Emperor Charles had so carefully collected, were to perish in the dust and rubbish of the following ages; whilst the work of Brother Gunzo, which never benefited any one of the few who read it, has come down to posterity. Let the monstrous deed, which so excited the Gallic scholar's ire, therefore be told in his own words.