She looked at him. In her eyes shone tears, but in her countenance something smiled. “Have we not to learn that everywhere we see each other?”
Gabriel Mayr called her from under the cherry tree.
That year Eberhard the artist did good and true work. He painted the portraits of the Prince and his children, he saw put forth in woodcuts, far and wide, ten great drawings of Christ’s Parables.
A year and more, and he came again to the red and brown house between the woodcarver’s and the goldsmith’s. This time the cherries were ripe, the birds were pecking them. This time Gabriel lay abed, within the house. He spoke to Eberhard standing beside him. “My ship is tugging at her binding ropes.... Thekla has something to say to you. It is about Elsa. I approve. I cannot talk any more to-day.”
Thekla gave him water and wine. A girl of twelve, an orphan for whom they made a home, took her place beside the bed. Thekla and Eberhard, moving to the outer room, talked beside the window. “Through the land, here and there and everywhere, monks are coming from their cells. Here and there a nun, stronger than the rest, comes forth.... I went to hear Martin Luther speaking in the market-place. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Come forth, monk, who seest now that, seeking God, thou mistookest for him an earthly giant! And come forth, nun, and stand side by side with thy brother the monk! Look within, and see the one God, who wills that both be free!’”
“Yes,” said Eberhard, “I have heard him preach that.”
“I have been to the convent. I have seen Elsa. She would leave her cell and come freely home, to live and work hereafter as need will have it. But she is not where she can say, ‘I mistook myself: Let me go at will as I came at will!’”
“No.”
“No. And my father is an old, dying man. And we have not strong friends, as strength goes. The changing time is yet so young, and the old time a giant—”
“Wait a little while—”