"For God's sake," he cried, "go in! The storm is just over our heads, and it will be a fearful one," and he dragged them apart as if in dutiful anxiety for their safety.
They went into the house in silence. It was now bed-time; the younger brethren went to the dormitories, the elders each to his own cell.
"Good night, my son," said the Abbot, and his eye once more rested on Donatus with a mournful and searching glance. "Remember my words! And one thing more: Go up to brother Eusebius, and see if he needs anything. I am sorry that he should have felt too feeble to-day to come to table. Besides a talk with the wise old man will do you as much good, as a cooling draught." Then he called to the other brethren, "See, all of you, to the fires and lights, it will be a dreadful night. At midnight we perform the mass for the soul of the Lady Uta; see that you none of you oversleep yourselves!"
Up in Eusebius' cell, as the Abbot had desired him, sat Donatus, opposite to his old friend in the dim light from the little window; the lurid clouds swept on in endless succession, grey on darker grey.
Eusebius was weaker than usual, but he was sitting up half-buried in books, parchments and instruments, writing-materials, rulers, compasses, and what not. For of all the fields over which the human mind had roamed there was not one which father Eusebius, in his quiet cell, had not explored and investigated. While he talked Donatus' fingers were unconsciously playing in their fevered restlessness with the thousand objects that were lying about, and thus his hand fell on a large pair of compasses; they were half open, and the two sharp points were parted. He took them up as if absorbed in reflection, he closed his eyes and laid the two points on his eye-lids.
"I could easily put my eyes out with these," said he thoughtfully. "Both at once with one blow. With a knife or dagger I should have to strike twice, and even if I had the courage for the first--for the second never--no never!"
Eusebius took the compasses out of his hand, and laid them on the table. "What mad words are you saying! What has put such hideous ideas into your head?"
Donatus looked wildly at him; his eyes glared strangely in the gloom that had gradually spread itself in the little room.
"I have often thought lately that a man who would fain avoid all love must put his eyes out," he said in a low and strangely tremulous voice, like a broken lute jarred by the wind.
Eusebius shook his head slowly and disapprovingly.