"I think that he has deserved this reprimand," said she.
Then Praxedis stood up: "Our good teacher needs many a reprimand, but then that should be our business. If we manage to cure him of his shy awkwardness, then we shall have done him a good service; but if someone who carries a beam in his own eye, reproaches his neighbour with the moat in his,--that is too bad! The wicked monks have merely sent this to slander him. May I throw it out of the window, gracious mistress?"
"We have neither requested you to complete Ekkehard's education, nor to throw a present we have received, out of the window," sharply said the Duchess. So Praxedis held her peace.
The Duchess could not tear away her thoughts so easily from the elegant libel. Her ideas with respect to the fair-haired monk, had undergone a great change since the day on which he carried her over the cloister courtyard. Not to be understood in a moment of excited feeling, is like being disdained. The sting remains for ever in the heart. Whenever her eyes now chanced to light on him, it did not make her heart beat any the quicker. Sometimes it was pity which made her gaze kindly on him again; but not that sweet pity out of which love springs, like the lily out of the cool soil. It contained a bitter grain of contempt.
Through Gunzo's libel, even Ekkehard's learning, which the women until then had been wont to treat with great respect, was laid prostrate in the dust,--so what was there now left to admire? The silent working and dreaming of his soul, was not understood by the Duchess, and a delicate timidity is but too often considered folly, by others. His going out into the fields in the fresh morning, to read Solomon's song, came too late. He should have done that last autumn....
Evening had come.
"Has Ekkehard returned home yet?" asked the Duchess.
"No," said Praxedis. "Neither has Master Spazzo returned."
"Then take yonder candlestick," said Dame Hadwig, "and carry up the parchment-leaves to Ekkehard's tower. He must not remain ignorant of the works of his fellow-brothers."
The Greek maid obeyed, but unwillingly. In the closet up in the tower, the air was close and hot. In picturesque disorder, books and other things were strewn about. On the oak table, the gospel of St. Matthew lay opened at the following verses: