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There was a tone of beseeching in these last words which Tabea had not been wont to use. The director looked more numb now than ever. Tabea's words had given him a rude blow, and he could not at once recover. His lips moved without speaking, and his face assumed a look betokening inward suffering. "Great God of wisdom, must I then tell her?" said Friedsam when he got breath.
When the first strophe had been sung below, and the sweet-voiced sisters caught up the antistrophe, Brother Friedsam, sitting in the midst, listened with painful attention, vainly trying to detect the sound of Tabea's voice.
Severity she could have defied; but this cry of a prophet awakened her own conscience, and she trembled as if she had been in the light of a clear-seeing divine judgment. "You can speak so, Brother Friedsam, for you have no human weaknesses. I am not suited to a convent; I never can be happy here. I am not submissive. I want to be necessary to somebody. Nobody cares for me here.
But even a dish of potatoes and turnips and beets and carrots, eaten from wooden trenchers, without milk or butter or meat, was not sufficient to make the affections and passions of men and women as ethereal as Friedsam wished. He wedded his people in mystic marriage to "the Chaste Lamb," to borrow his frequent phrase.
She had seen little of the great Brother Friedsam, and he had given her, instead of friendly notice and approval, only a schoolmaster's scolding now and then for slight faults committed in singing a new piece.
I am going to lay aside these garments and marry Daniel Scheible." She held out her hand, but Friedsam was too much stunned to see it. "You have broken your vow! You have denied the Lord!" There was no severity in his despondent rebuke; it had the vibration of an involuntary cry of surprise and pain. Tabea was not prepared for this.
At length it was agreed that Tabea should tell Brother Friedsam that the sisters did not intend to go to singing school again. Then Tabea lifted up her dark head and regarded the circle of women in white garments about her. "You are all brave now, but when Brother Friedsam shakes his finger at you, you will every one of you submit as though you were a set of redemptioners bought with his money.
What could be done to tame human nature into submission, to bring it to rejoice only in unearthly meditations, and a contented round of self-denial and psalm-singing, Brother Friedsam had tried on his followers with the unsparing hand of a religious enthusiast. He had forbidden all animal food.
Then, finding that the director remained silent, she said, with emotion: "Brother Friedsam, I have a great reverence for you, but I wish you knew something of the infirmities of a heart that wants to love and to be loved by somebody, and then maybe you would not think so very hardly of Tabea after she has gone."
To the surprise of all, Tabea left her work at once, covered up her head with the hood attached to her gown, and sought the lodge of Brother Friedsam, which stood between Bethany and Sharon. When Tabea was admitted to the cell, and stood before the revered Friedsam, she felt an unexpected palpitation. Nor was Beissels any more composed.
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