Three times since that first December afternoon had Eberhard opened the gate, come in between the cherry trees.
Gabriel sat in his armchair under the largest tree, beneath his feet a cushion, about his shrunken frame, for all the May weather, a furred cloak, gift of old pupils. His eyes were closed, he was sleeping in the sun. Thekla sat beside him, embroidering upon a scarf arms of the greatest Hauptberg family. When she saw Eberhard she put her finger to her lips. He stood beneath the blooming trees; they gazed each upon the other for a moment, then she rose, put aside the embroidery frame, and, stepping lightly, moved from the sleeping old man. At some distance, among the currant bushes, stood a wooden bench. She moved to this, and Eberhard followed. Here they might mark the sleeper through an opening, but for the rest the green bushes closed them round. The air was full of a subdued, murmurous noise, bees, twittering birds, sounds from the woodcarver’s house of the woodcarver’s trade.
“Came one yesterday,” she said, “who told us that now they are preaching against monastic vows. He said that what is preached is printed, and that it steals from overhead like the wind into cloisters, that monks and nuns read.... Oh, that it might unbar the door for Elsa!”
“You love Elsa so.”
“She is younger than me. She is unhappy—Elsa, my sister!”
“How was it, Thekla, that your sister went there?”
Thekla gazed at the tree heads against the blue sky. “Ah, cannot you remember a day when it seemed wisest and fairest to worship so—from a cell? She dreamed that, and being young, she went. Then her inner need travelled its own path, and it was hardly that path. But her body is held there, though her mind has gone forth. All the customs of the place clutch and bind too closely the growing being.... She would forth if she could.”
“Who may know where all this deep rebellion will stop? Thekla, I see a wider circle.”
“Oh, and I!... There is no stopping.”
Behind the small red and brown house a cock crew. The two listened. “The crowing of a cock.... When I hear it from far away,” said Eberhard, “it pleases me so! It seems the oldest, oldest sound....”