midnight
So he was forced to remain , and Eva felt that her presence was not the least thing which rendered the hospital distasteful . Yet , as his aged eyes refused their service and he liked to have someone read aloud from the gospels which he carried with him , or from notes written by his own hand , which also comprised some of the poems of St. Francis , and no one else in the house was capable of performing this office , he at last explicitly desired to keep her for his nurse . To anoint and bandage , according to the physician 's prescription , his sore feet and the deep scars made on his back by severe scourging , which had reopened , became more difficult the more plainly he showed his aversion to her touch , because she -- he had told her so himself -- was a woman . She certainly had not found it easy to keep awake and wear a pleasant expression when , after a toilsome day , he woke her at midnight and forced her to read aloud until the grey dawn of morning . But hardest of all for Eva to bear were the bitter words with which he wounded her , and which sounded specially sharp and hostile when he reproached her for standing between Heinz Schorlin and the eternal salvation for which the knight so eagerly longed . He seemed to bear her a grudge like that which the artist feels towards the culprit who has destroyed one of his masterpieces . Often , too , a chance word betrayed that he blamed Heaven for having denied him victory in the battle for the soul of Heinz .