Water is stable compared with Ulrich's temperament. Close upon the anguish of this renewed rejection he goes home for a ten-days' visit with his wife,--"my dear wife, who could not be dearer to me even though I had another woman for the lady of my life." Within eight lines this mercurial poet speaks of his comfort with his wife, and of the suffering of his love-languishing heart.
Another message from his dream brought a renewed expression of coldness. She felt kindly to him, but she never would grant favor to any one. But another song and messenger secure at last the promise of an interview. Yet notice the conditions. Evidently this lady was a humorist, to whom her former page was amusing when her less complaisant mood did not find him tiresome. And perhaps she thought that he could not accept her terms. She says she will see him if he will come the next Sunday morning before breakfast, dressed in poor clothes, and in company with a squad of lepers who have a camp near her castle. But even then he is to indulge in no hope of her love. The distance is so great that he thinks he will be unable to cover it in time; but he is told that he must, for "women are very strange; they wish men constantly to carry out their desires, and to any one who fails to do so they are not well disposed." On Saturday he rode thirty-six miles, lost two horses by the forced journey, very likely over rough country, and was wearied by the exertion of so hard an effort. But he succeeded, and as soon as they reach the neighborhood of the castle, he and his two companions put on poor clothes--the shabbiest they could procure,--and with leper cups and long knives for their safety among such outcasts of society, they go to the spot where thirty lepers are huddled together. Mediæval charity and religion are illustrated by this incident; the miserable beggars explain that a lady of the castle is ill, and therefore they often receive food and money in recompense for their prayers for her recovery. Beating his clapper like one of them, he goes toward the castle gate, and meets an envoy maid who bids him beware of failing to obey every command literally, and adds that her mistress will not see him yet awhile. That personal vanity which always marked him had submitted to stains of herbs to disguise his face, as well as to miserable and ragged dress, and off he went, in the servitude of love, and sat among the lepers, ate and drank among them--nay, even went about begging for scraps, which, however, he threw under a bush. The foul odors and the filthiness of the wretches about him made the day almost insufferable, but at last night came, and he hid himself in a field of grain, getting well stung by insects and drenched in a cold storm. But he told himself that "whoever has in his troubles sweet anticipation, he can endure them." In the morning he went to the castle again, and was encouraged to believe that he would be received that evening. So he returned and ate with the beggars; then he escaped to a wood, and with true old German nature-sentiment, he sat down where the sun fell through the trees and listened to the birds--many were singing--and forgot the cold.