“In religion, the schools, art and knowledge!”
“The blowing wind will not bend the Black Forest and leave the Hartz Forest unbowed. Spring will not come to the Hartz Wood and leave the Black Wood bare. Without Pope ... without Emperor!”
“Come back, Thekla, from far away!”
“Every slave freed—”
“Come back! Come back!”
“Dawn for women—dawn for women!”
Above her moving hands Thekla’s face flushed like a rose. “As the Church to all, so have been men to women!... The Church might have become just from within, but does not, and the folk break down the gates of the city and take their own! But now, surely, the freeing folk will free on and on! And surely men will become just from within!” She raised her hands. “I shall go about the world as I will, and I shall build my ships and sail therein!... And my sister Elsa will come from her nunnery!”
Gabriel Mayr nodded his head. But he sat in his great chair with sinews grown sunken and unbraced. His eyes had lost point, they seemed the eyes of one who contemplates a dream, recurrent but unsubstantial. Yet he nodded his head....
But Walther von Langen said roughly: “I am fond of Thekla, save when she speaks without knowledge!”
“No harvest ripens for man,” said Albrecht, “but woman may gather a good windfall in her apron!”