"Do I limp?" repeated Lucia, with a forced smile. "I really believe I have hurt my foot ... Ungrateful!" added she silently to herself; "it is for your sake that I suffer."
"Go your way, and let me finish my epitaph."
But Lucia did not go; she came closer to him. Her eyes filled with tears, and she folded both her arms around the old man's neck.
"Your epitaph!" she repeated in a voice so mild that one would never have expected it from those withered lips, used so very often for hard words and invective only.
"Oh, my God!" she continued in a low tone, "shall, then, all that is great and glorious on earth finally become dust? But that day is still far distant, my friend; yes, it must be so. Let me see the epitaph of the great Johannes Messenius!"
"Certainly," said the old man, consoled by her sincere flattery, "you are decidedly the true persona executrix who ought to read my epitaphium, as you are also the one who will have to engrave it on my tombstone. Look, my dear; what do you think of this?
"Here lie the bones of Doctoris Johannes Messenii. His soul is in God's kingdom, but his fame is all over the world!"
"Never," said Lucia, weeping, "have truer words been placed over a great man's grave. But let us say no more about it. Let us speak of your great work, your Scondia. Do you know I have a feeling that its glory will in a short time prepare freedom for you..."
"Freedom!" repeated Messenius, in a melancholy tone. "Yes, you are right; the freedom of the grave to decay wherever one chooses."
"No," replied Lucia with eagerness and enthusiasm, "you shall yet receive the honour that is due to you. They will read your great Scondia illustrata, they will have it printed ... with your name in gilded letters on the title-page ... the whole world will say, full of admiration: 'never has his equal existed in the North'!"