Читать книгу Ekkehard (Historical Novel) - Joseph Victor von Scheffel - Страница 8

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The one who was least of all delighted, by the arrival of the unexpected guests, was Romeias the gate-keeper. He had a presentiment, what part of the trouble was likely to fall to his share, but he did not yet know the whole of it. Whilst the abbot received the Duchess, Gerold the steward, came up to him and said:

"Romeias prepare to go on an errand. You are to tell the people on the different farms, to send in the fowls that are due, before evening, as they will be wanted at the feast, and besides you are to procure as much game as possible."

This order pleased Romeias well. It was not the first time that he had been to ask for fowls, and yeomen and farmers held him in great respect, as he had a commanding manner of speaking. Hunting was at all times the delight of his heart, and so Romeias took his spear, hung the cross-bow over his shoulder, and was just going to call out a pack of hounds, when Gerold pulled his sleeve and said: "Romeias, one thing more! You are to accompany the duchess' waiting-women, who have been forbidden to enter the monastery, to the Schwarza-Thal, and present them to the pious Wiborad, who is to entertain them as pleasantly as may be, until the evening. And you are to be very civil, Romeias, and I tell you there is a Greek maid amongst them with the darkest eyes imaginable … "

On hearing this, a deep frown of displeasure darkened Romeias's forehead, and vehemently thrusting his spear to the ground he exclaimed: "I am to accompany womenfolk? That is none of the business of the gate-keeper of St. Gallus's monastery--" but Gerold with a significant nod towards him, continued: "Well, Romeias, you must try to do your best; and have you never heard that watchmen, who have faithfully performed their missions, have found an ample jug of wine in their room of an evening,--eh, Romeias?"

The discontented face brightened up considerably, and so he went down to let out the hounds. The blood-hound and the beagle jumped up gaily, and the little beaver-puppy also set up a joyous bark, hoping to be taken out likewise; but with a contemptuous kick it was sent back, for the hunter had nothing to do with fish-ponds and their inhabitants. Surrounded by his noisy pack of hounds, Romeias strode out of the gate.

Praxedis and the other waiting-women of the Duchess, had dismounted from their horses and seated themselves on a grassy slope, chatting away about monks and cowls and beards, as well as about the strange caprices of their mistress, when Romeias suddenly appeared before them and said: "Come on!"

Praxedis looked at the rough sports-man, and not quite knowing, what to make of him, pertly said: "Where to, my good friend?"--

Romeias however merely lifted his spear and pointing with it to a neighbouring hill behind the woods, held his tongue.

Then Praxedis called out: "Is speech such a rare article in St. Gall, that you do not answer properly when questioned?"

The other maids giggled, upon which Romeias said solemnly: "May you all be swallowed up by an earthquake, seven fathom deep."

"We are very much obliged to you, good friend," was Praxedis's reply, and the necessary preliminaries for a conversation being thus made, Romeias informed them of the commission he had received, and the women followed him willingly enough.

After some time the gate-keeper found out, that it was not the hardest work to accompany such guests, and when the Greek maid, desired to know something about his business and sport, his tongue got wonderfully loosened and he even related his great adventure with the terrible boar, into whose side he had thrown his spear and yet had not been able to kill it, for one of its feet would have loaded a cart, and its hair stood up as high as a pine-tree, and its teeth were twelve feet long at the least. After this he grew still more civil, for when the Greek once stopped, to listen to the warbling of a thrush, he waited also patiently enough, though a singing-bird was too miserable a piece of game for him to give much heed to; and when Praxedis bent down for a pretty brass-beetle, crawling about in the moss, Romeias politely tried to push it towards her, with his heavy boot, and when in doing so he crushed it instead, this was certainly not his intention.

They climbed up a wild, steep wood-path, beside which the Schwarza-brook flowed over jagged rocks. On that slope the holy Gallus had once fallen into some thorny bushes, and had said to his companion, who wanted to lift him up: "Here let me lie, for here shall be my resting-place and my abode for ever."

They had walked far, before they came to a clearing in the fir-wood, where leaning against the sheltering rocks stood a simple chapel in the shape of a cross. Close to it a square little stone-hut was built against the rock in which but one tiny window with a wooden shutter, was to be seen. Opposite there stood another hut exactly like it, having also but one little window.

It was customary at that time for those who inclined to the monastic life, and who as St. Benedict expressed himself, felt strong enough to fight with the Devil, without the assistance of pious companions, to have themselves immured in that way. They were called "Reclausi" that is Walled-in, and their usefulness and aim in life, may well be compared to that of the pillar-saints in Egypt. The sharp winds of winter, and frequent fall of snow, rendered their exposure in the open air somewhat impossible, but the longing for an anchorite's life, was nevertheless quite as strong.

Within those four walls on Erin-hill there lived the Sister Wiborad, a far-famed recluse of her time. She came from Klingnau in Aargau, and had been a proud and prudish virgin, learned in many an art; besides being able to recite all the Psalms in the Latin tongue, which she had learnt from her brother Hitto. She was not however quite opposed to the idea of sweetening the life of some man or other, but the flower of the youth at Aargau did not find grace in her eyes; and one day she set out on a pilgrimage to Rome. There in the holy city her restless mind must have undergone some great shock, but none of her contemporaries ever knew in what way. For three entire days her brother Hitto ran up and down the Forum through the halls of the Colliseum, and the triumphal arch of Constantine to the four-faced Janus near the Tiber, seeking for his sister and not finding her, and on the morning of the fourth day, she walked in by the Salarian gate, carrying her head very high, and whilst her eyes gleamed strangely she said, that things would not be right in the world until the due amount of veneration was shown unto St. Martin.

After returning to her home, she bequeathed all her wealth to the bishop's church at Constance, on condition that a great festival in honor of St. Martin, should be held every year on the 11th of November. Then she went to live in a small house where the holy Zilia had lived before, and there led a hermit's life, until she grew dissatisfied, and betook herself to the valley of St. Gallus. The bishop himself accompanied her, put the black veil on her head with his own hands, and after leading her into the cell, he laid the first stone with which the entrance was closed up. Then he pronounced his blessing, imprinting his seal four times into the lead, which joined the stones together, whilst the monks who had accompanied him, chaunted sad solemn strains, as if someone was being buried.

The people thereabout held the recluse in great honour. They called her a "hard-forged Saint" and on many a Sunday they flocked to the meadow before her cell, and listened to Wiborad, who stood preaching at her window, and several women went to live in her neighbourhood, to be instructed in all the virtues.

"We have arrived at the place of our destination," said Romeias, upon which Praxedis and her companions looked about in every direction; but not a human being was to be seen. Only some belated butterflies and beetles buzzed drowsily in the sunshine and the cricket chirped merrily, hidden in the grass. The shutter at Wiborad's window was almost shut, so that but a scanty ray of sunshine could penetrate; and from within came the monotonous hollow tones of a person chaunting psalms, with a somewhat nasal sound, breaking the silence without. Romeias knocked against the shutter with his spear, but this had no effect on the psalm-chaunting individual inside. Then the gate-keeper said: "We must try some other way of rousing her attention."

Romeias was rather a rough sort of man, or he would not have behaved as he did.

He began singing a song, such as he often sang to amuse the cloister-pupils, when they managed to steal off into his watch-tower, there to plague him, by pulling his beard or by making all sorts of absurd noises on his big horn. It was one of those ditties, which from the time that the German tongue was first spoken, have been sung by the thousand, on hills and highroads, beneath hedges and woody dells, and the wind has carried them on and spread them further. The words of this were as follows:

"I know an oak-tree fair to see,

In yonder shady grove,

There bills and coos the lifelong day

A beautiful wild dove.

I know a rock in yonder vale,

Around which bats are flitting

There, old and hoary in her nest

An ugly owl is sitting.

The wild dove is my heart's delight,

And with a song I greet it;

The arrow keep I for the owl

To kill it when I meet it."

This song had about the same effect, as if Romeias had thrown a heavy stone against the shutter. Instantly there appeared a figure at the little window, from the withered and scraggy neck of which, rose a ghastly woman's head, in whose countenance the mouth had assumed a rather hostile position towards the nose. A dark veil hid the rest, and bending out of the little window as far as she could, she cried out with ominously gleaming eyes: "Art thou come back, Satanas?"

Romeias then advanced a few steps and said complacently: "Nay, the Evil One does not know such fine songs as Romeias, the monastery's gate-keeper. Calm yourself Sister Wiborad, I bring you some dainty damsels, whom the Abbot warmly recommends to your kind reception."

"Take yourselves off, ye deceiving phantoms!" screamed the recluse. "I know the snares of the Tempter. Hence, begone!"

But Praxedis now approached the window, and humbly dropping a low curtsey to the old hag, explained to her that she did not come from hell, but from the Hohentwiel. Showing that the Greek maiden could be a little deceitful, she added, that she had already heard so much of the great piety of the far-famed Sister Wiborad, that she had availed herself of the first opportunity of paying her a visit, though the fact was, that she had before that day never heard about the cell and its inhabitant.

After this the wrinkles on Wiborad's forehead began somewhat to disappear. "Give me thy hand, stranger," said she, stretching her arm out of the window, which as the sleeve fell back, could be seen in all its skinny leanness.

Praxedis held up her right hand, and as the recluse touched with her dry fingers the soft warm hand with its throbbing pulses, she became slowly convinced, that the young girl was a being of flesh and blood.

Romeias on perceiving this change for the better rolled some big stones under the window of the cell. "In two hours I shall be back to fetch you;--God bless you, virgins all," he said aloud and then added in a whisper to the Greek maid,--"and don't be frightened if she should fall into one of her trances."

Whistling to his dogs he then quickly strode towards the wood. The first thirty steps or so, he got on without any impediment; but then he suddenly stopped; and turning first his shaggy head round, and then the whole body, he stood leaning on his spear, intently gazing at the spot before the cell, as if he had lost something there. Yet he had forgotten nothing.

Praxedis smiled and kissed her hand to the rudest of all gate-keepers. Then Romeias quickly turned round again, shouldered his spear,--dropped it, took it up again, then stumbled and finally managed to complete his retreat, after which he vanished behind the moss-grown stems.

"Oh thou child of the world, groping in darkness," scolded the recluse, "what meant that movement of thy hand?"

"A mere jest," replied Praxedis innocently.

"A downright sin," cried Wiborad in rough accents, so that Praxedis started,--and then continuing with her preaching added: "Oh the Devil's works and delusions! There you cast your eyes slily about until they enter a man's heart like lightning, and kiss your hands to him as if that were nothing! Is it nought that he looks back who ought to be looking forwards? No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. 'A jest?' O give me hyssop to take away your sin, and snow to wash you clean!"

"I did not think of that," admitted Praxedis deeply blushing.

"That is the misery, that you do not think of so many things;"--then looking at Praxedis from head to foot she continued, "neither do you think that wearing a bright green garment, and all such flaring colours are an abomination unto those, who have banished all worldly thoughts; and that thy girdle is tied so loosely and negligently round thy waist, as if thou wert a public dancer. Watch and pray!"

Leaving the window for a few moments, the recluse returned presently, and held out a coarsely twisted cord.

"I have pity on thee, poor turtle-dove," she said. "Tear off thy silken finery and receive herewith the girdle of self-denial, from Wiborad's own hand; and let it be a warning to thee, to have done with all vain talkings and doings. And when thou feelest the temptation again to kiss thy hand to the gate-keeper of a monastery, turn thy head eastwards and chaunt the psalm, 'Oh Lord, deliver me from evil!'--and if even then peace will not come to thee, then light a wax-candle and hold thy forefinger over the flame, and thou wilt be saved; for fire alone, cures fire."

Praxedis cast down her eye.

"Your words are bitter," she said.

"Bitter!" exclaimed the recluse. "Praised be the Lord that my lips do not taste of sweets! The mouth of saints must be bitter. When Pachomius sat in the desert, the angel of the Lord came unto him, took the leaves from a laurel-tree, and writing some holy words of prayer thereon, gave them to Pachomius and said: 'Swallow these leaves, and though they will be as bitter as gall in thy mouth, they will make thy heart overflow with true wisdom.' And Pachomius took the leaves and ate them, and from that moment his tongue became bitter, but his heart was filled with sweetness, and he praised the Lord."

Praxedis said nothing, and there ensued a silence which was not interrupted for some time. The other maids of the Duchess had all vanished, for when the recluse had handed out her girdle, they nudged each other and then quietly glided away. They were now gathering bunches of heather and other autumnal flowers, giggling at what they had witnessed.

"Shall we also put on such a belt?" said one of them.

"Yes, when the sun rises black," replied the other.

Praxedis had put the cord into the grass.

"I do not like robbing you of your girdle," she now said shyly.

"Oh, the simplicity," exclaimed Wiborad, "the girdle that we wear is no child's play like the one, that I gave thee. The girdle of Wiborad is an iron hoop with blunted spikes,--it clinks like a chain and cuts into the flesh,--thou wouldst shudder at the mere sight of it."

Praxedis gazed towards the wood, as if spying whether Romeias was not yet to be seen. The recluse probably noticed that her guest did not feel particularly comfortable, and now held out to her a board, on which lay about half a dozen of reddish green crab-apples.

"Does time pass by slowly for thee, child of the world?" she said.--"There, take these, if words of grace do not satisfy thee. Cakes and sweet-meats have I none, but these apples are fair in the sight of the Lord. They are the nourishment of the poor."

The Greek maid knew what politeness required. But they were crab-apples, and after having, with an effort swallowed the half of one, her pretty mouth looked awry, and involuntary tears started into her eyes.

"How dost thou like them?" cried the recluse. Then Praxedis feigned as if the remaining half fell by chance from her hand. "If the Creator had made all apples as acid as these," she said with a sour-sweet smile, "Eve would never have eaten of the apple."

Wiborad was offended. "Tis well," said she, "that thou dost not forget the story of Eve. She had the same tastes as thou, and therefore sin has come into the world."

The Greek maid looked up at the sky but not from emotion. A solitary hawk flew in circles over Wiborad's hut. "Oh that I could fly with thee, away to the Bodensee," she thought. Archly shaking her pretty head she then enquired: "What must I do, to become as perfect as you are?"

"To renounce the world entirely," replied Wiborad, "is a grace from above, which we poor mortals can't acquire by ourselves. Fasting, drinking of pure water, castigating the flesh and reciting of psalms,--all these are mere preparations. The most important thing is to select a good patron-saint. We women are but frail creatures, but fervent prayer brings the champions of God to our side, to assist us. Imagine, before this little window, there he often stands in lonely nights,--he, whom my heart has elected, the valiant Bishop Martin, and he holds out his lance and shield, to protect me from the raging devils. An aureole of blue flames crowns his head, flashing through the darkness like summer-lightning, and as soon as he appears the demons fly away shrieking. And when the battle is over, then he enters into friendly communion with me. I tell him all that weighs on my poor heart;--all the grief which my neighbours cause me, and the wrong which I suffer from the cloister-folk; and the Saint nods to me and shakes his curly head, and all that I tell him, he carries to heaven and repeats it to his friend the Archangel Michael, who keeps watch every Monday, before the throne of God Almighty. There it comes before the right ear, and Wiborad the last of the least is not forgotten. … "

"Then I shall also choose St. Martin to become my patron-saint," exclaimed Praxedis. But this had not been the drift of Wiborad's praises. She threw a contemptuous half jealous look on the rosy cheeks of the young girl. "The Lord pardon thee, thy presumption!" cried she with folded hands "dost thou believe that this can be done with a flippant word and smooth face? Indeed! Many long years have I striven and fasted until my face became wrinkled and furrowed,--and he did not favour me even with one single look! He is a high and mighty Saint and a valiant soldier of the Lord, who only looks on long tried champions."

"He will not rudely shut his ears against my prayers," exclaimed Praxedis.

"But thou shalt not pray to him," cried Wiborad angrily. "What has he to do with thee? For such as thou art, there are other patron-saints. I will name thee one. Choose thou the pious Father Pachomius for thyself."

"Him, I don't know," said Praxedis.

"Bad enough, and it is high time for you to make his acquaintance. He was a venerable hermit who lived in the Theban desert, nourishing himself with wild roots and locusts. He was so pious that he heard during his lifetime, the harmony of the spheres and planets and often said: 'If all human beings would hear, what has blessed my ears, they would forsake house and land; and he who had put on the right shoe, would leave the left one behind, and hasten hither.' Now in the town of Alexandria there was a maid, whose name was Thaïs, and nobody could tell, which was greater, her beauty or her frivolity. Then Pachomius said unto himself 'Such a woman is a plague for the whole Egyptian land,' and after cutting his beard and anointing himself he mounted a crocodile, which by prayer he had made subservient to himself, and on its scaly back was carried down the Nile; and then he went to Thaïs, as if he also were an admirer of hers. His big stick, which was a palmtree, he had taken with him, and he managed to shake the heart of the sinner so, as to make her burn her silken robes, as well as her jewels, and she followed Pachomius, as a lamb does the shepherd. Then he shut her up in a rocky grave, leaving only a tiny window in it; instructed her in prayer, and after five years her purification was completed, and four angels carried her soul up to heaven."

This story did not impress Praxedis very favourably.

"The old hermit with his rough beard and bitter lips is not good enough for her," she thought, "and therefore I am to take him for myself," but she did not dare to give utterance to these thoughts.

At this moment the curfew bell began to ring in the monastery, and at this signal the recluse stepped back into her chamber and closed her shutter. The hollow sound of psalm-chanting was heard again, accompanied by the noise of falling strokes. She was flagellating herself.

Meanwhile Romeias had begun his sport in the distant wood, and thrown his spear--but he had mistaken the trunk of a felled oak for a young deer. Angrily he pulled out his weapon from the tenacious wood;--it was the first time in his life, that such a thing had happened to him.

Before Wiborad's cell total silence reigned for a considerable length of time, and when her voice was again heard, it was quite altered; the tones being fuller and vibrating with passion: "Come down unto me, holy Martin; valiant champion of God; thou consolation of my solitude; thou light in my darkness. Descend unto me, for my soul is ready to receive thee and my eyes are thirsting for thee."--

After this there ensued a pause, and then Praxedis started with terror.--A hollow shriek had come from within. She pushed open the shutter and looked in. The recluse was prostrated on her knees, her arms extended beseechingly, and her eyes had a fixed, stony expression. Beside her lay the scourge.

"For God's sake," cried Praxedis, "what is the matter with you?"

Wiborad jumped up and pressed the hand, which the Greek maid extended to her, convulsively. "Child of Earth," said she in broken accents, "that has been deemed worthy to witness the agonies of Wiborad,--strike thy bosom; for a token has been given. He, the elected of my soul has not come; offended that his name has been profaned by unholy lips; but the holy Gallus has appeared to my soul's eye,--he who as yet has never deigned to visit my cell, and his countenance was that of a sufferer and his garments were torn, and half burnt. That means that his monastery is threatened by some great disaster. We must pray that his disciples may not stumble in the path of righteousness."

Bending her head out of the window she called out, "Sister Wendelgard!"

Then the shutter was opened on the opposite cell and an aged face appeared. The face belonged to good Dame Wendelgard, who in that fashion was mourning for her spouse, who had never returned from the last wars.

"Sister Wendelgard," said Wiborad, "let us sing three times 'Be merciful to us, oh Lord.'"

But the Sister Wendelgard had just been indulging in loving thoughts of her noble spouse. She still harboured an unalterable conviction, that some day he would return to her from the land of the Huns, and she would have liked best, there and then to leave her cell, to go and meet him.

"It is not the time for psalm-singing," she replied.

"So much the more acceptable, the voluntary devotion, rises up to Heaven," said Wiborad, after which she intoned the said psalm, with her rough unmelodious voice. But the expected response did not come. "Why dost thou not join me in singing David's song?"

"Because I don't wish to do so," was Sister Wendelgard's unceremonious reply. The fact was, that during the many years of her seclusion she had at last grown weary of it. Many thousand psalms had she sung at Wiborad's bidding, in order to induce St. Martin to deliver her husband, out of the hands of the infidels; but the sun rose and set daily--and yet he never came. And so she had begun to dislike her gaunt neighbour, with her visions and phantasms.

Wiborad however turned her eyes upwards, like one who thinks he can discover a comet in clear day-light. "Oh thou vessel, full of iniquity and wickedness!" she cried, "I will pray for thee, that the evil spirits may be banished from thee. Thine eye is blind as thy mind is dark."

But the other quietly replied: "Judge not, that thou be not judged. My eyes are as clear as they were a year ago, when in a moon-shiny night, they beheld you getting out of your window, and going away Heaven knows where;--and my mind still refuses to believe, that prayers coming from such a mouth can work miracles."

Then Wiborad's pale face became distorted, as if she had bitten a pebble. "Woe to thee, whom the Devil has deluded!" screamed she and a flood of scolding words streamed from her lips; but her neighbour knew well how to answer her with similar missiles.

Quicker and quicker the words came, confusing and mixing themselves together, whilst the rocky walls threw back unharmonious echoes, and frightened a pair of little owlets, which leaving their cranny nest flew away screeching … in truth at the famous quarrel beneath the portal of the cathedral at Worms, when the two queens⁴ were scolding and upbraiding each other, the volubility and anger exhibited were not to be compared to that of the pious recluses.

In mute astonishment Praxedis stood listening to the noise, secretly wishing to interfere and make peace; but then a soft thing fares ill between two sharp ones.

But now the merry notes of a horn, intermingled with the loud barking of dogs was heard from the wood, and a moment later, the tall majestic figure of Romeias could be seen also, approaching slowly.

The second time that he had thrown the spear, it had not hit a tree, but a magnificent stag of ten antlers, which now hung over his shoulder; and besides this, he carried fastened to his belt, six hares which had been caught in snares.

On beholding the fight before him, the sportsman's heart rejoiced mightily. Without saying a word, he loosened two of the living hares, and swinging one in each hand, he threw them so dexterously into the narrow little windows, that Wiborad suddenly feeling the soft fur brushing past her head, started back with a loud scream. The brave Sister Wendelgard likewise got a great shock, for her black habit had loosened itself in the heat of battle, and the wretched little hare, getting entangled therein, and trying to discover an outlet, caused her no small fright. So both stopped their scolding, closed the shutters, and there was silence again on Erin-hill.

"We'll go home," said Romeias to the Greek maid, "for it is getting late." Praxedis who was not over pleased, either by the quarrelling or Romeias' way of making peace, had no desire to stay any longer. Her companions had gone back some time ago, following their own inclinations.

"Hares must be of small value here, as you throw them away in such an unmannerly way," she said.

"True, they are not worth much," Romeias rejoined laughingly, "yet the present deserved thanks at least."

Whilst still speaking, the dormer-window of Wiborad's roof opened; about half of her gaunt lean figure became visible, and a stone of some weight, flew over Romeias head, without hitting him. That was her way of thanking him for the hare.

From this can be seen, that the forms of social intercourse differed somewhat from the present fashions.

Praxedis expressed her astonishment.

"Oh, such things happen about once a week," explained Romeias. "A moderate overflow of gall, gives new strength to such old hags, and it is doing them a kindness, if one helps them to effect such a crisis."

"But she is a saint," said Praxedis shyly.

After first murmuring some unintelligible words in his beard, Romeias said: "Well, she ought to be thankful if she is one, and I am not going to tear off her garb of sanctity. But since I was at Constance on a visit to my mother, I have heard many a tale, that's not quite as it ought to be. It has not yet been forgotten in those parts, how she had to defend herself before the bishop on account of this and that which is none of my business; and the Constance merchants will tell you, without your asking them, that the recluses near the cathedral have lent them money, given to them by pious pilgrims, on usurious interest. It was not my fault, that once, when I was still a boy, I found in a quarry a strange big pebble. When I knocked it to pieces with my hammer, there was a toad in the middle, looking very much astonished. Since then I know what a recluse is like. Snip-snap--trari-trara!"

Romeias accompanied his new friend to the house which lay beyond the cloister-walls and which was destined to receive her. Before it, the other maids were standing, and the posy of wild flower's they had gathered lay on a stone table before the door.

"We must say Good-bye," said the gate-keeper.

"Farewell," said Praxedis.

He then went away, and after going thirty steps suddenly turned round,--but the sun does not rise twice in one day; least of all for the keeper of a cloister-gate! No hand was being kissed to him. Praxedis had entered the house. Then Romeias slowly walked back, and without troubling himself to ask leave, hastily took up the flowers from the stone table, and went away. The stag and four hares he brought to the kitchen. After this he toiled up to his room in the watch-tower, fastened the nosegay to the wall with the help of a nail, and taking a piece of charcoal, drew a heart under it, which had two eyes, a long stroke in lieu of a nose, and a cross-line for a mouth.

He had just finished this, when the cloister-pupil Burkhard came up, bent upon amusing himself. Romeias seized him with a powerful grasp, held out the charcoal and placing him before the wall, said: "There, write the name under it!"

"What name?" asked the boy.

"Hers," commanded Romeias.

"What do I know about her, and her name," testily replied the pupil.

"There one can see again, what is the use of studying," grumbled Romeias. "Every day the boy sits for eight hours behind his asses'-skins and does not know the name of a strange damsel!" …

⁴ Chriemhilde and Brunhilde.