This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
By Georg Ebers
As her father had ordered the servants not to disturb the young girls,Els did not wake till the sun was high in the heavens. Eva's place ather side was empty. She had already left the room. For the first timeit had been impossible to sleep even a few short moments, and when sheheard from the neighbouring cloister the ringing of the little bell thatsummoned the nuns to prayers, she could stay in bed no longer.
Usually she liked to dress slowly, thinking meanwhile of many thingswhich stirred her soul. Sometimes while the maid or Els braided her hairshe could read a book of devotion which the abbess had given her. Butthis morning she had carried the clothes she needed into the next room ontiptoe, that she might not wake her sister, and urged Katterle, whohelped her dress, to hurry.
She longed to see her aunt at the convent. While kneeling at the prie-dieu, she had reached the certainty that her patron saint had led HeinzSchorlin to her. He was her knight and she his lady, so he must renderher obedience, and she would use it to estrange him from the vanity ofthe world and make him a champion of the holy cause of the Church ofChrist, the victorious conqueror of her foes. Sky-blue, the HolyVirgin's colour, should be hers, and thus his also, and every victorygained by the knight with the sky-blue on his helmet, under St. Clare'sprotection, would then be hers.
Heinz Schorlin was already one of the boldest and strongest knights; herlove must render him also one of the most godly. Yes, her love! If St.Francis had not disdained to make a wolf his brother, why might she notfeel herself the loving sister of a youth who would obey her as a noblefalcon did his mistress, and whom she would teach to pursue the rightquarry? The abbess would not forbid such love, and the impulse that drewher so strongly to the convent was the longing to know how her aunt wouldreceive her confession.
The night before when, after her conversation with Els, she began topray, she had feared that she had fallen into the snare of earthly love,and dreaded the confession which she had to make to her aunt Kunigunde.Now she found that it was no fleshly bond which united her to the knight.Oh, no! As St. Francis had gone forth to console, to win souls for theLord, to bring peace and exhort to earnest labour in the service of theSaviour, as his disciples had imitated him, and St. Clare had beenuntiring in working, in his spirit, among women, she, too, would obey thecall which had come to her saint in Portiuncula, and prove herself forthe first time, according to the Scripture, "a fisher of souls."
Now she gladly anticipated the meeting; for though her sister did notunderstand her, the abbess must know how to sympathise with what waspassing in her mind. This expectation was fulfilled; for as soon as shewas alone with her aunt she poured forth all her hopes and feelingswithout reserve, eagerly and joyfully extolling her good fortune that,through St. Clare, she had been enabled to find the noblest and mostvaliant knight, that she might win him for the Holy War under her saint'sprotection and to her honour.
The abbess, who knew women's hearts, had at first felt the same fear asEls; but she soon changed her opinion, and thought that she might bepermitted to rejoice over the new emotion in her darling's breast.
No girl in love talked so openly and joyously of the conq