Eugenius: We too must wear our humility, Abbot, and take our bread from the servants God sends us. Now hear me: you will nurture our daughter Hildegard, the Flower of Prophecy, and through her we shall all be fed. I will not be forsworn. I tell you, support and encourage her and serve your Church.
Kuno: (Aside.) Mother Church.
Eugenius: Abbot?
Kuno: As you will, Holiness.
Eugenius: So we will. Come, my friends, let us rise and take some air. A cool wind blows at the window at last, I think, and our day has drawn long.
So they spoke. Kuno, you see, had no particular fondness for intellectual women. What had happened, he asked himself, since on one else was paying him any attention, to the proper order of things, to Degree, respect for Estates, as God the Father had built the world? As he must bear subservience to the Pope, so the woman should endure subservience to him. Who can trust, he thought, the visions of women, churned by emotion and tainted with the guilt of Eve? The pope could be right, of course, must be right, unless evil or, rather, weariness, or political currents had obscured his sight or maladjusted his thinking. Though he must encourage her work, though, he need not permit insubordination; in fact, Kuno appointed his own particular duty to keep the woman first on her course to salvation and only second on the paths of knowledge—rather, third, he thought, after also her devotion to the duty of obedience, a duty he as well as anyone might teach her, knowing its gall himself. The road home, long, difficult in any day, would give him room and time to brood, to meditate how best to direct her course and to restrain his disappointment.
Far away, back in Germania, among the Rupertsberg streets, a crowd gathered for a festival: a brief time of pleasure amidst lives hounded by pain and want. Three rustic travelers in bright costumes, such colors as few of the lower classes could legally wear in those times, danced acrobatically, strong eastern accents rolling the German obliquely off their tongues. They paused for applause, to gather themselves for the next performance, and to address their audience.
Dayadva: Ai, those Russian crowds were tough. They like you, they stamp their feet, they don’t like you, they stamp their feet: who knows what they think?
Datta: At least they don’t draw their swords. Remember Mongolia?
Dayadva: Ai! How can I forget Mongolia?
Damyata: At least they don’t make borscht in Mongolia. Russia: borscht, borscht, borscht. Cold as a frozen schussbaba.
Dayadva: Boy: watch your language.
Datta: He’s all right, Dayadva. He’s coming of an age, and who can help but think of such things.
Dayadva: That’s all we need: Damyata girl chasing.
Damyata: Yes, we definitely need that, yes.
Datta: Both of you, calm yourselves. This crowd will be better than any people yet. I feel it. I know it.
Dayadva: I hope you are right, old father. Perhaps we stay a while here before we move on to Italy.
Damyata: They have nice girls in Italy?
Datta: Nice brown-eyed girls. I remember.
Damyata: I like blue eyes.
Dayadva: First a frozen schussbaba, now he want to be picky about eye color.
Datta: Shhh, both. Dall comes. Let us prepare to do show.
When a crowed began to gather, having heard their instruments or having seen their dancing, the performers started to clap their hands and sing. The crowd, ever eager for carnival, or even the merest break from daily drudgery, gave the acrobats no gifts yet, but they did supply their attention, and that usually had a way of turning itself at least into supper for itinerant actors and their like. Hardly the abstract and brief chroniclers of their time, they often felt grateful for an edible meal and a bit of something sufficient to carry them to the next town. Overlooking the crowd, the eldest spoke first, shouting gleefully and rubbing his balding skull.
Datta: I am Datta, grandfather.
Dayadva: And I, Dayadva, father.
Damyata: And I, Damyata, son.
All three: And this is Dall, mother.
All four: We come from a far land: to entertain you!
They sang and danced to such musical accompaniment as simple instruments could provide: Donau, son of Dayadva’s sister, simple of mind but devoted to his uncle, patted a tabor, turned a drone, or puffed into a shawm with more soul than talent or skill. Truly, they had invested nearly all of their wealth in their instruments and costumes, all but what they had spent on the horse and wagon that carried them from town to town.
In our poor, overfed age we may disdain such simple street-circus acrobatics as one could have found then, but the craftsfolk and peasants of Rupertsberg clapped along, sang or whistled with the performers when they knew the tunes, and gave at least a cheer, having little else to give and little else beyond work to do. Finding their song and dance had won praise, but nothing more material, and having learned something of the village before they performed, they enlisted help from members of their audience to perform a pantomime in which Dall, wife of Dayadva and mother of Damyata, costumed as a nun received a vision, was judged and nearly crucified by authorities, but was finally saved by a bright, mysterious figure dressed in blue. Her father-in-law, draped in a long, blue cloth, carrying before him a great mask in the shape of a smiling sun, strode before them, after which Dall moved among the crowed, healing her former persecutors and leading them all in a dance. Yes, folk would dance in those days, leaving their burdens for a few blessed moments beside the road until, reawakened by a soldier or official or priest, they would take them up once more. But on that day the sun and authorities alike shone, and even the bees seemed to stop in their course to observe and join the hum.
Datta: And now I, Datta, will perform a feat such as you have never seen before. Behold! And it is you who will save me from death.
He climbed upon a roadside wall, as his compatriots arranged and prepare some folk from the crowd to catch him. They well knew that if they won not only the admiration but the affection and familiarity of the people, they well might eat for the next several days, and regular meals make for strong and ready performers. Datta, making great show, spreading his arms wide, then straight overhead, sprung from his perch atop the wall into the human net his comrades had set for him; they caught him with a loud cheer not only for his courage, but for their own skill in breaking his fall. Datta sprung from their arms into a handspring, then bowed grandly.
Datta: Such are the kind people here, to spare the life of an old man for another show. And such is the great lady of the abbey, that we dedicate our play to her, known far and wide for her kindness, gentleness, and holiness.
“Encore! Encore! Let’s see it again, old Datta!” the crowd cried.
Dayadva: No, Father, once a day is enough.
“Encore! Once more, Old Man!” they called again.
Datta: They will have their show. Who are we to deny them? They buy our bread and milk–we hope.
Dayadva: Care, Father, care!
Datta climbed again to the cheers of the crowd. They aligned themselves, but as well may happen in
