IV.

Eisenach,January, 1505.

Fritz is at home with us again. He looks as much a man now as our father, with his moustache and his sword. How cheerful the sound of his firm step and his deep voice makes the house! When I look at him sometimes, as he tosses the children and catches them in his arms, or as he flings the balls with Christopher and Pollux, or shoots with bow and arrows in the evenings at the city games, my old wish recurs that he had lived in the days when our ancestors dwelt in the castles in Bohemia, and that Fritz had been a knight, to ride at the head of his retainers to battle for some good cause,—against the Turks, for instance, who are now, they say, threatening the empire, and all Christendom. My little world at home is wide indeed, and full enough for me, but this burgher life seems narrow and poor for him. I should like him to have to do with men instead of books. Women can read, and learn, and think, if they have time (although, of course, not as well as men can); I have even heard of women writing books. St. Barbara and St. Catherine understood astronomy, and astrology, and philosophy, and could speak I do not know how many languages. But they could not have gone forth armed with shield and spear like St. George of Cappadocia, to deliver the fettered princess and slay the great African dragon. And I should like Fritz to do what women cannotdo. There is such strength in his light, agile frame, and such power in his dark eyes; although, certainly after all he had written to us about his princely fare at the House at Erfurt, where he is a beneficiary, our mother and I did not expect to have seen his face looking so hollow and thin.

He has brought me back my godmother's gulden. He says he is an independent man, earning his own livelihood, and quite above receiving any such gratuities. However, as I devoted it to Fritz I feel I have a right to spend it on him, which is a great comfort, because I can provide a better table than we can usually afford, during the few days he will stay with us, so that he may never guess how pinched we often are.

I am ashamed of myself, but there is something in this return of Fritz which disappoints me. I have looked forward to it day and night through all these two years with such longing. I thought we should begin again exactly where we left off. I pictured to myself the old daily life with him going on again as of old. I thought of our sitting in the lumber-room, and chatting over all our perplexities, our own and the family's, and pouring our hearts into each other's without reserve or fear, so that it was scarcely like talking at all, but like thinking aloud.

And, now, instead of our being acquainted with every detail of each other's daily life, so that we are aware what we are feeling without speaking about it, there is a whole history of new experience to be narrated step by step, and we do not seem to know where to begin. None of the others can feel this as I do. He is all to the children and our parents that he ever was, and why should I expect more? Indeed, I scarcely know what I did expect, or what I do want. Why should Fritz be more to me than to any one else? It is selfish to wish it, and it is childish to imagine that two years could bring no change. Could I have wished it? Do I not glory in his strength, and in his free and manly bearing! And could I wish a student at the great University of Erfurt, who is soon to be a Bachelor of Arts, to come and sit on the piles of old books in our lumber-room, and to spend his time in gossiping with me? Besides, what have I to say? And yet, this evening, when the twilight-hour came round for the third time since he returned, and he seemed to forget all about it, I could not help feeling troubled, and so took refuge here by myself.

Fritz has been sitting in the family-room for the last hour, with all the children round him, telling them histories of what the students do at Erfurt; of their poetical club, where they meet and recite their own verses, or translations of the ancient books which have been unburied lately, and yet are fresher, he says, than any new ones, and set every one thinking; of the debating meeting, and the great singing parties where hundreds of voices join, making music fuller than any organ,—in both of which Martin Luther seems a leader and a prince; and then of the fights among the students, in which I do not think Martin Luther has joined, but which, certainly, interest Christopher and Pollux more than anything else. The boys were standing on each side of Fritz, listening with wide open eyes; Chriemhild and Atlantis had crept close behind him with their sewing; little Thekla was on his knee, playing with his sword-girdle; and little Eva was perched in her favourite place on the window-sill, in front of him. At first she kept at a distance from him, and said nothing; not, I think, from shyness, for I do not believe that child is afraid of any one or any thing, but from a quaint way she has of observing people, as if she were learning them through like a new language, or, like a sovereign making sure of the character of a new subject before she admits him into her service. The idea of the little creature treating our Fritz in that grand style! But it is of no use resisting it. He has passed through his probation like the rest of us, and is as much flattered as the grandmother, or any of us, at being admitted into her confidence. When I left, Eva, who had been listening for some time with great attention to his student-stories, had herself become the chief speaker, and the whole party were attending with riveted interest while she related to them her favourite Legend of St. Catherine. They had all heard it before, but in some way when Eva tells these histories they always seem new. I suppose it is because she believes them so fervently; it is not as if she were repeating something she had heard, but quietly narrating something she has seen, much as one would imagine an angel might who had been watching unseen while it all happened. And, meantime, her eyes, when she raises them, with their fringe of long lashes, seem to look at once into your heart and into heaven.

No wonder Fritz forgets the twilight-hour. But it is strange he has never once asked about our chronicle. Of that, however, I am glad, because I would not for the world show him the narrative of our struggles.

Can it be possible I am envious of little Eva—dear, little, loving, orphan Eva? I do rejoice that all the world should love him. Yet, it was so happy to be Fritz's only friend; and why should a little stranger child steal my precious twilight-hour from me?

Well, I suppose Aunt Agnes was right, and I made an idol of Fritz, and God was angry, and I am being punished. But the saints seemed to find a kind of sacred pleasure in their punishments, and I do not; nor do I feel at all the better for them, but the worse—which is another proof how hopeless it is for me to try to be a saint.

Eisenach,February.

As I wrote those last words in the deepening twilight, two strong hands were laid very gently on my shoulders, and a voice said—

"Sister Elsè,whycan you not show me your chronicle?"

I could make no reply.

"You are convicted," rejoined the same voice.

"Do you think I do not know where that gulden came from? Let me see your godmother's purse."

I began to feel the tears choking me; but Fritz did not seem to notice them.

"Elsè," he said, "you may practise your little deceptive arts on all the rest of the family, but they will not do with me. Do you think you will ever persuade me you have grown thin by eating sausages and cakes and wonderful holiday puddings every day of your life? Do you think the hungry delight in the eyes of those boys was occasioned by their every-day, ordinary fare? Do you think," he added, taking my hands in one of his, "I did not see how blue and cold, and covered with chilblains, these little hands were, which piled up the great logs on the hearth when I came in this morning?"

Of course I could do nothing but put my head on his shoulder and cry quietly. It was of no use denying anything. Then he added rapidly, in a low deep voice—

"Do you think I could help seeing our mother at her old devices, pretending she had no appetite, and liked nothing so much as bones and sinews?"

"O Fritz," I sobbed, "I cannot help it. What am I to do?"

"At least," he said, more cheerfully, "promise me, little woman, you will never make a distinguished stranger of your brother again, and endeavour by all kinds of vain and deceitful devices to draw the whole weight of the family cares on your own shoulders."

"Do you think it is a sin I ought to confess, Fritz?" I said; "I did not mean it deceitfully; but I am always making such blunders about right and wrong. What can I do?"

"Does Aunt Ursula know?" he asked rather fiercely.

"No; the mother will not let me tell any one. She thinks they would reflect on our father; and he told her only last week, he has a plan about a new way of smelting lead, which is, I think, to turn it all into silver. That would certainly be a wonderful discovery; and he thinks the Elector would take it up at once, and we should probably have to leave Eisenach and live near the Electoral Court. Perhaps even the Emperor would require us to communicate the secret to him, and then we should have to leave the country altogether; for you know there are great lead-mines in Spain; and if once people could make silver out of lead, it would be much easier and safer than going across the great ocean to procure the native silver from the Indian savages."

Fritz drew a long breath.

"And meantime?" he said.

"Well, meantime," I said, "it is of course, sometimes a little difficult to get on."

He mused a little while, and then he said—

"Little Elsè, I have thought of a plan which may, I think, bring us a few guldens—until the process of transmuting lead into silver is completed."

"Of course," I said, "after that we shall want nothing, but be able to give to those who do want. And oh, Fritz! how well we shall understand how to help people who are poor. Do you think that is why God lets us be so poor ourselves so long, and never seems to hear our prayers?"

"It would be pleasant to think so, Elsè," said Fritz, gravely; "but it is very difficult to understand how to please God, or how to make our prayers reach him at all—at least when we are so often feeling and doing wrong."

It cheered me to see that Fritz does not despair of the great invention succeeding one day. He did not tell me what his own plan is.

Does Fritz, then, also feel so sinful and so perplexed how to please God? Perhaps a great many people feel the same. It is very strange. If it had only pleased God to make it a little plainer. I wonder if that book Eva lost would tell us anything!

After that evening the barrier between me and Fritz was of course quite gone, and we seemed closer than ever. We had delightful twilight talks in our lumber-room, and I love him more than ever. So that Aunt Agnes would, I suppose, think me more of an idolater than before. But it is very strange that idolatry should seem to do me so much good. I seem to love all the world better for loving Fritz, and to find everything easier to bear, by having him to unburden everything on, so that I had never fewer little sins to confess than during the two weeks Fritz was at home. If God had only made loving brothers and sisters and the people at home the way to please him, instead of not loving them too much, or leaving them all to bury one's self in a cold convent, like Aunt Agnes!

Little Eva actually persuaded Fritz to begin teaching her the Latin grammar! I suppose she wishes to be like her beloved St. Catherine, who was so learned. And she says all the holy books, the prayers and the hymns, are in Latin, so that she thinks it must be a language God particularly loves. She asked me a few days since if they speak Latin in heaven.

Of course I could not tell. I told her I believed the Bible was originally written in two other languages, the languages of the Greeks and the Jews, and that I had heard some one say Adam and Eve spoke the Jews' language in paradise, which I suppose God taught them.

But I have been thinking over it since, and I should not wonder if Eva is right.

Because, unless Latin is the language of the saints and holy angels in heaven, why should God wish the priests to speak it everywhere, and the people to say the Ave and Paternoster in it? We should understand it all so much better in German; but of course if Latin is the language of the blessed saints and angels, that is a reason for it. If we do not always understand, THEY do, which is a great comfort. Only I think it is a very good plan of little Eva's to try and learn Latin; and when I have more time to be religious, perhaps I may try also.

Erfurt, 1505.

The university seems rather a cold world after the dear old home at Eisenach. But it went to my heart to see how our mother and Elsè struggle, and how worn and thin they look. Happily for them, they have still hope in the great invention, and I would not take it away for the world. But meantime, I must at once do something to help. I can sometimes save some viands from my meals, which are portioned out to us liberally on this foundation, and sell them; and I can occasionally earn a little by copying themes for the richer students, or sermons and postils for the monks. The printing-press has certainly made that means of maintenance more precarious; but printed books are still very dear, and also very large, and the priests are often glad of small copies of fragments of the postils, or orations of the fathers, written off in a small, clear hand, to take with them on their circuits around the villages. There is also writing to be done for the lawyers, so that I do not despair of earning something: and if my studies are retarded a little, it does not so much matter. It is not for me to aspire to great things, unless, indeed, they can be reached by small and patient steps. I have a work to do for the family. My youth must be given to supporting them by the first means I can find. If I succeed, perhaps Christopher or Pollux will have leisure to aim higher than I can; or, perhaps, in middle and later life I myself shall have leisure to pursue the studies of these great old classics, which seem to make the horizon of our thoughts so wide, and the world so glorious and large, and life so deep. It would certainly be a great delight to devote one's self, as Martin Luther is now able to do, to literature and philosophy. His career is opening nobly. This spring he has taken his degree as Master of Arts, and he has been lecturing on Aristotle's physics and logic. He has great power of making dim things clear, and old things fresh. His lectures are crowded. He is also studying law, in order to qualify himself for some office in the State. His parents (judging from his father's letters) seem to centre all their hopes in him; and it is almost the same here at the university. Great things are expected of him; indeed there scarcely seems any career that is not open to him. And he is a man of such heart, as well as intellect, that he seems to make all the university, the professors as well as the students, look on him as a kind of possession of their own. All seem to feel a property in his success. Just as it was with our little circle at Eisenach, so it is with the great circle at the university. He isourMaster Martin; and in every step of his ascent we ourselves feel a little higher. I wonder, if his fame should indeed spread as we anticipate, if it will be the same one day with all Germany? if the whole land will say exultingly by-and-by—ourMartin Luther?

Not that he is without enemies; his temper is too hot and his heart too warm for that negative distinction of phlegmatic negative natures.

June, 1505.

Martin Luther came to me a few days since, looking terribly agitated. His friend Alexius has been assassinated, and he takes it exceedingly to heart; not only, I think, because of the loss of one he loved, but because it brings death so terribly near, and awakens again those questionings which I know are in the depths of his heart, as well as of mine, about God, and judgment, and the dark, dread future before us, which we cannot solve, yet cannot escape nor forget.

To-day we met again, and he was full of a book he had discovered in the university library, where he spends most of his leisure hours. It was a Latin Bible, which he had never seen before in his life. He marvelled greatly to see so much more in it than in the Evangelia read in the churches, or in the Collections of Homilies. He was called away to lecture, or, he said, he could have read on for hours. Especially one history seems to have impressed him deeply. It was in the Old Testament. It was the story of the child Samuel and his mother Hannah. "He read it quickly through," he said, "with hearty delight and joy; and because this was all new to him, he began to wish from the bottom of his heart that God would one day bestow on him such a book for his own."

I suppose it is the thought of his own pious mother which makes this history interest him so peculiarly. It is indeed a beautiful history, as he told it me, and makes one almost wish one had been born in the times of the old Hebrew monarchy. It seems as if God listened so graciously and readily then to that poor sorrowful woman's prayers. And if we could only, each of us, hear that voice from heaven, how joyful it would be to reply, like that blessed child, "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth;" and then to learn, without possibility of mistake, what God really requires of each of us. I suppose, however, the monks do feel as sure of their vocation as the holy child of old, when they leave home and the world for the service of the Church. It would be a great help if other people had vocations to their various works in life, like the prophet Samuel and (I suppose) the monks, that we might all go on fearlessly, with a firm step, each in his appointed path, and feel sure that we are doing the right thing, instead of perhaps drawing down judgments on those we would die to serve, by our mistakes and sins. It can hardly be intended that all men should be monks and nuns. Would to heaven, therefore, that laymen had also their vocation, instead of this terrible uncertainty and doubt that will shadow the heart at times, that we may have missed our path (as I did that night in the snow-covered forest), and, like Cain, be flying from the presence of God, and gathering on us and ours his curse.

July12, 1505.

There is a great gloom over the university. The plague is among us. Many are lying dead who, only last week, were full of youth and hope. Numbers of the professors, masters, and students have fled to their homes, or to various villages in the nearest reaches of the Thuringian forest. The churches are thronged at all the services. The priests and monks (those who remain in the infected city) take advantage of the terror the presence of the pestilence excites, to remind people of the more awful terrors of that dreadful day of judgment and wrath which no one will be able to flee. Women, and sometimes men, are borne fainting from the churches, and often fall at once under the infection, and never are seen again. Martin Luther seems much troubled in mind. This epidemic, following so close on the assassination of his friend, seems to overwhelm him. But he does not talk of leaving the city. Perhaps the terrors which weigh most on him are those the preachers recall so vividly to us just now, from which there is no flight by change of place, but only by change of life. During this last week, especially since he was exposed to a violent thunder-storm on the high road near Erfurt, he has seemed strangely altered. A deep gloom is on his face, and he seems to avoid his old friends. I have scarcely spoken to him.

July14.

To-day, to my great surprise, Martin has invited me and several other of his friends to meet at his rooms on the day after to-morrow, to pass a social evening in singing and feasting. The plague has abated; yet I rather wonder at any one thinking of merry-making yet. They say, however, that a merry heart is the best safe-guard.

July17.

The secret of Martin Luther's feast is opened now. The whole university is in consternation. He has decided on becoming a monk. Many think it is a sudden impulse, which may yet pass away. I do not. I believe it is the result of the conflict of years, and that he has only yielded, in this act, to convictions which have been recurring to him continually during all his brilliant university career.

Never did he seem more animated than yesterday evening. The hours flew by in eager, cheerful conversation. A weight seemed removed from us. The pestilence was departing; the professors and students were returning. We felt life resuming its old course, and ventured once more to look forward with hope. Many of us had completed our academical course, and were already entering the larger world beyond—the university of life. Some of us had appointments already promised, and most of us had hopes of great things in the future; the less definite the prospects, perhaps the more brilliant. Martin Luther did not hazard any speculations as to his future career; but that surprised none of us. His fortune, we said, was insured already; and many a jesting claim was put in for his future patronage, when he should be a great man.

We had excellent music also, as always at any social gathering where Martin Luther is. His clear, true voice was listened to with applause in many a well-known song, and echoed in joyous choruses afterward by the whole party. So the evening passed, until the university hour for repose had nearly arrived; when suddenly, in the silence after the last note of the last chorus had died away, he bid us all farewell; for on the morrow, he said, he purposed to enter the Augustinian monastery as a novice! At first, some treated this as a jest; but his look and bearing soon banished that idea. Then all earnestly endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose. Some spoke of the expectations the university had formed of him—others, of the career in the world open to him; but at all this he only smiled. When, however, one of us reminded him of his father, and the disappointment it might cause in his home, I noticed that a change came over his face, and I thought there was a slight quiver on his lip. But all,—friendly remark, calm remonstrance, fervent, affectionate entreaties,—all were unavailing.

"To-day," he said, "you see me; after this you will see me no more."

Thus we separated. But this morning, when some of his nearest friends went to his rooms early, with the faint hope of yet inducing him to listen, while we pressed on him the thousand unanswerable arguments which had occurred to us since we parted from him, his rooms were empty, and he was nowhere to be found. To all our inquiries we received no reply but that Master Martin had gone that morning, before it was light, to the Augustinian cloister.

Thither we followed him, and knocked loudly at the heavy convent gates. After some minutes they were slightly opened, and a sleepy porter appeared.

"Is Martin Luther here?" we asked.

"He is here!" was the reply; not, we thought, without a little triumph in the tone.

"We wish to speak with him," demanded one of us.

"No one is to speak with him," was the grim rejoinder.

"Until when?" we asked.

There was a little whispering inside, and then came the decisive answer, "Not for a month at least."

We would have lingered to parley further, but the heavy nailed doors were closed against us, we heard the massive bolts rattle as they were drawn, and all our assaults with fists or iron staffs on the convent gates, from that moment did not awaken another sound within.

"Dead to the world, indeed!" murmured one at length; "the grave could not be more silent."

Baffled, and hoarse with shouting, we wandered back again to Martin Luther's rooms. The old familiar rooms, where we had so lately spent hours with him in social converse; where I and many of us had spent so many an hour in intimate, affectionate intercourse,—his presence would be there no more; and the unaltered aspect of the mute, inanimate things only made the emptiness and change more painful by the contrast.

And yet, when we began to examine more closely, the aspect of many things was changed. His flute and lute, indeed, lay on the table, just as he had left them on the previous evening. But the books—scholastic, legal, and classical—were piled up carefully in one corner, and directed to the booksellers. In looking over the well-known volumes, I only missed two, Virgil and Plautus; I suppose he took these with him. Whilst we were looking at a parcel neatly rolled up in another place, the old man who kept his rooms in order came in, and said, "That is Master Martin's master's robe, his holiday attire, and his master's ring. They are to be sent to his parents at Mansfeld."

A choking sensation came over me as I thought of the father who had struggled so hard to maintain his son, and had hoped so much from him, receiving that packet. Not from the dead. Worse than from the dead, it seemed to me. Deliberately self-entombed; deliberately with his own hands building up a barrier between him and all who love him best. With the dead, if they are happy, we may hold communion—at least the Creed speaks of the communion of saints; we may pray to them; or, at the worst, we may pray for them. But between the son in the convent and the father at Mansfeld the barrier is not merely one of stone and earth. It is of the impenetrable iron of will and conscience. It would be atemptationnow for Martin Luther to pour out his heart in affectionate words to father, mother, or friend.

And yet, if he is right,—if the flesh is only to be subdued, if God is only to be pleased, if heaven is only to be won in this way,—it is of little moment indeed what the suffering may be to us or any belonging to us in this fleeting life, down which the grim gates of death which close it, ever cast their long shadow.

May not Martin serve his family better in the cloister than at the emperor's court, for is not the cloister the court of a palace more imperial?—we may say, the very audience-chamber of the King of kings. Besides, if he had a vocation, what curse might not follow despising it? Happy for those whose vocation is so clear that they dare not disobey it; or whose hearts are so pure that they would not if they dared!

July19.

These two days the university has been in a ferment at the disappearance of Martin Luther. Many are indignant with him, and more with the monks, who, they say, have taken advantage of a fervent impulse, and drawn him into their net. Some, however, especially those of the school of Mutianus—the Humanists—laugh, and say there are ways through the cloister to the court,—and even to the tiara. But those misunderstand Martin. We who know him are only too sure that he will be a true monk, and that for him there is no gate from the cloister back into the world.

It appears now that he had been meditating this step more than a fortnight.

On the first of this month (July) he was walking on the road between Erfurt and Stotterheim, when a thunder-storm which had been gathering over the Thuringian forest, and weighing with heavy silence on the plague-laden air, suddenly burst over his head. He was alone, and far from shelter. Peal followed peal, succeeded by terrible silences; the forked lightning danced wildly around him, until at length one terrific flash tore up the ground at his feet, and nearly stunned him. He was alone, and far from shelter; he felt his soul equally alone and unsheltered. The thunder seemed to him the angry voice of an irresistible, offended God. The next flash might wither his body to ashes, and smite his soul into the flames it so terribly recalled; and the next thunder-peal which followed might echo like the trumpet of doom over him lying unconscious, deaf, and mute in death. Unconscious and mute as to his body! but who could imagine to what terrible intensity of conscious, everlasting anguish his soul might have awakened; what wailings might echo around his lost spirit, what cries of unavailing entreaty he might be pouring forth? Unavailing then! not, perhaps wholly unavailing now! He fell on his knees,—he prostrated himself on the earth, and cried in his anguish and terror, "Help, beloved St. Anne, and I will straightway become a monk."

The storm rolled slowly away; but the irrevocable words had been spoken, and the peals of thunder, as they rumbled more and more faintly in the distance, echoed on his heart like the dirge of all his worldly life.

He reached Erfurt in safety, and, distrustful of his own steadfastness, breathed nothing of his purpose except to those who would, he thought, sustain him in it. This was no doubt the cause of his absent and estranged looks, and of his avoiding us during that fortnight.

He confided his intention first to Andrew Staffelstein, the rector of the university, who applauded and encouraged him, and took him at once to the new Franciscan cloister. The monks received him with delight, and urged his immediately joining their order. He told them he must first acquaint his father of his purpose, as an act of confidence only due to a parent who had denied himself so much and toiled so hard to maintain his son liberally at the university. But the rector and the monks rejoined that he must not consult with flesh and blood; he must "forsake father and mother, and steal away to the cross of Christ." "Whoso putteth his hand to the plough and looketh back," said they, "is not worthy of the kingdom of God." To remain in the world was peril. To return to it was perdition.

A few religious women to whom the rector mentioned Martin's intentions, confirmed him in them with fervent words of admiration and encouragement.

Did not one of them relent, and take pity on his mother and his father? And yet, I doubt if Martin's mother would have interposed one word of remonstrance between him and the cloister. She is a very religious woman. To offer her son, her pride, to God, would have been offering the dearest part of herself; and women have a strength in self-sacrifice, and a mysterious joy, which I feel no doubt would have carried her through.

With Martin's father it would no doubt have been different. He has not a good opinion of the monks, and he has a very strong sense of paternal and filial duty. He, the shrewd, hard-working, successful peasant, looks on the monks as a company of drones, who, in imagining they are giving up the delights of the world, are often only giving up its duties. He was content to go through any self-denial and toil that Martin, the pride of the whole family, might have scope to develop his abilities. But to have the fruit of all his counsel, and care, and work buried in a convent, will be very bitter to him. It was terrible advice for the rector to give his son. And yet, no doubt, God has the first claim; and to expose Martin to any influence which might have induced him to give up his vocation, would have been perilous indeed. No doubt the conflict in Martin's heart was severe enough as it was. His nature is so affectionate, his sense of filial duty so strong, and his honour and love for his parents so deep. Since the step is taken, Holy Mary aid him not to draw back!

December, 1505.

This morning I saw a sight I never thought to have seen. A monk, in the grey frock and cowl of the Augustinians, was pacing slowly through the streets with a heavy sack on his shoulders. The ground was covered with snow, his feet were bare; but it was no unfrequent sight, and I was idly and half-unconsciously watching him pause at door after door, and humbly receiving any contributions that were offered, stow them away in the convent-sack, when at length he stopped at the door of the house I was in, and then, as his face turned up towards the window where I stood, I caught the eye of Martin Luther!

I hurried to the door with a loaf in my hand, and, before offering it to him, would have embraced him as of old; but he bowed low as he received the bread, until his forehead nearly touched the ground, and, murmuring a Latin "Gratias," would have passed on.

"Martin," I said, "do you not know me?"

"I am on the service of the convent," he said. "It is against the rules to converse or to linger."

It was hard to let him go without another word.

"God and the saints help thee, Brother Martin!" I said.

He half turned, crossed himself, bowed low once more, as a maid-servant threw him some broken meat, said meekly, "God be praised for every gift he bestoweth," and went on his toilsome quest for alms with stooping form and downcast eyes. But how changed his face was! The flush of youth and health quite faded from the thin, hollow cheeks; the fire of wit and fancy all dimmed in the red, sunken eyes! Fire there is indeed in them still, but it seemed to me of the kind that consumes—not that warms and cheers.

They are surely harsh to him at the convent. To send him who was the pride and ornament of the university not six months ago, begging from door to door, at the houses of friends and pupils, with whom he may not even exchange a greeting! Is there no pleasure to the obscure and ignorant monks in thus humbling one who was so lately so far above them? The hands which wield such rods need to be guided by hearts that are very noble or very tender. Nevertheless, I have no doubt that Brother Martin inflicts severer discipline on himself than any that can be laid on him from without. It is no external conflict that has thus worn and bowed him down in less than half a year.

I fear he will impose some severe mortification or himself for having spoken those few words to which I tempted him.

But if it is his vocation, and if it is for heaven, and if he is thereby earning merits to bestow on others, any conflict could no doubt be endured!

July, 1506.

Brother Martin's novitiate has expired, and he has taken the name of Augustine, but we shall scarcely learn to call him by it. Several of us were present a few days since at his taking the final vows in the Augustinian Church. Once more we heard the clear, pleasant voice which most of us had heard, in song and animated conversation, on that farewell evening. It sounded weak and thin, no doubt with fasting. The garb of the novice was laid aside, the monk's frock was put on, and kneeling below the altar steps, with the prior's hands on his bowed head, he took the vow in Latin:—

"I, Brother Martin, do make profession and promise obedience unto Almighty God, unto Mary, ever virgin, and unto thee, my brother, prior of this cloister, in the name and in the stead of the general prior of the order of the Eremites of St. Augustine, the bishop and his regular successors, to live in poverty and chastity after the rule of the said St. Augustine until death."

Then the burning taper, symbol of the lighted and ever-vigilant heart, was placed in his hand. The prior murmured a prayer over him, and instantly from the whole of the monks burst the hymn, "Veni Sancte Spiritus."

He knelt while they were singing; and then the monks led him up the steps into the choir, and welcomed him with the kiss of brotherhood.

Within the screen, within the choir, among the holy brotherhood inside, who minister before the altar! And we, his old friends, left outside in the nave, separated from him for ever by the screen of that irrevocable vow!

For ever! Is it for ever? Will there indeed be such a veil, an impenetrable barrier, between us and him at the judgment-day? And we outside? A barrier impassable for ever then, but not now, not yet.

January, 1507.

I have just returned from another Christmas at home. Things look a little brighter there. This last year, since I took my master's degree, I have been able to help them a little more effectually with the money I receive from my pupils. It was a delight to take our dear, self-denying, loving Elsè a new dress for holidays, although she protested her old crimson petticoat and black jacket were as good as ever. The child Eva has still that deep, calm, earnest look in her eyes, as if she saw into the world of things unseen and eternal, and saw there what filled her heart with joy. I suppose it is that angelic depth of her eyes, in contrast with the guileless, rosy smile of the child-like lips, which gives the strange charm to her face, and makes one think of the pictures of the child-angels.

She can read the Church Latin now easily, and delights especially in the old hymns. When she repeats them in that soft, reverent, childish voice, they seem to me deeper and more sacred than when sung by the fullest choir. Her great favourite is St. Bernard's "Jesu Dulcis Memoria," and his "Salve Caput Cruentatum;" but some verses of the "Dies Iræ" also are very often on her lips. I used to hear her warbling softly about the house, or at her work, with a voice like a happy dove hidden in the depths of some quiet wood,—

"Querens me sedisti lassus,"Jesu mi dulcissime, Domine cœlorum,Conditor omnipotens, Rex universorum;Quis jam actus sufficit mirari gestorum,Quæ te ferie compulit salus miserorum.Te de cœlo caritas traxit animarum,Pro quibus palatium deserens præclarum;Miseram ingrediens vallum lacrymarum,Opus durum suscipis, et iter amarum.[3]

"Querens me sedisti lassus,"

Jesu mi dulcissime, Domine cœlorum,Conditor omnipotens, Rex universorum;Quis jam actus sufficit mirari gestorum,Quæ te ferie compulit salus miserorum.

Te de cœlo caritas traxit animarum,Pro quibus palatium deserens præclarum;Miseram ingrediens vallum lacrymarum,Opus durum suscipis, et iter amarum.[3]

The sonorous words of the ancient imperial language sound so sweet and strange, and yet so familiar from the fresh childish voice. Latin seems from her lips no more a dead language. It is as if she had learned it naturally in infancy from listening to the songs of the angels, who watched her in her sleep, or from the lips of a sainted mother bending over her pillow from heaven.

One thing, however, seems to disappoint little Eva. She has a sentence taken from a book her father left her before he died, but which she was never allowed to see afterwards. She is always hoping to find the book in which this sentence was, and has not yet succeeded.

I have little doubt myself that the book was some heretical volume belonging to her father, who was executed for being a Hussite. It is to be hoped, therefore, she will never find it. She did not tell me this herself, probably because Elsè, to whom she mentioned it, discouraged her in such a search. We all feel it is a great blessing to have rescued that innocent heart from the snares of those pernicious heretics, against whom our Saxon nation made such a noble struggle. There are not very many of the Hussites left now in Bohemia. As a national party they are indeed destroyed, since the Calixtines separated from them. There are, however, still a few dragging out a miserable existence among the forests and mountains; and it is reported that these opinions have not yet even been quite crushed in the cities, in spite of the vigorous measures used against them, but that not a few secretly cling to their tenets, although outwardly conforming to the Church. So inveterate is the poison of heresy, and so great the danger from which little Eva has been rescued.

Erfurt,May 2, 1507.

To-day once more the seclusion and silence which have enveloped Martin Luther since he entered the cloister have been broken. This day he has been consecrated priest, and has celebrated his first mass. There was a great feast at the Augustinian convent; offerings poured in abundance into the convent treasury, and Martin's father, John Luther, came from Mansfeld to be present at the ceremony. He is reconciled at last to his son (whom for a long time he refused to see); although not, I believe, to his monastic profession. It is certainly no willing sacrifice on the father's part. And no wonder. After toiling for years to place his favourite son in a position where his great abilities might have scope, it must have been hard to see everything thrown away just as success was attained, for what seemed to him a willful, superstitious fancy. And without a word of dutiful consultation to prepare him for the blow!

Having, however, at last made up his mind to forgive his son, he forgave him like a father, and came in pomp with precious gifts to do him honour. He rode to the convent gate with an escort of twenty horsemen, and gave his son a present of twenty florins.

Brother Martin was so cheered by the reconciliation, that at the ordination feast he ventured to try to obtain from his father not only pardon, but sanction and approval. It was of the deepest interest to me to hear his familiar eloquent voice again, pleading for his father's approval. But he failed. In vain he stated in his own fervent words the motives that had led to his vow; in vain did the monks around support and applaud all he said. The old man was not to be moved.

"Dear father," said Martin, "what was the reason of thy objecting to my choice to become a monk? Why wert thou then so displeased, and perhaps art not reconciled yet? It is such a peaceful and godly life to live."

I cannot say that Brother Martin's worn and furrowed face spoke much for the peacefulness of his life; but Master John Luther boldly replied in a voice that all at the table might hear,—

"Didst thou never hear that a son must be obedient to his parents? And, you learned men, did you never read the Scriptures, 'Thou shalt honour thy father and thy mother?' God grant that those signs you speak of may not prove to be lying wonders of Satan."

Brother Martin attempted no defence. A look of sharp pain came over his face, as if an arrow had pierced his heart; but he remained quite silent.

Yet he is a priest; he is endued with a power never committed even to the holy angels—to transubstantiate bread into God—to sacrifice for the living and the dead.

He is admitted into the inner circle of the court of heaven.

He is on board that sacred ark which once he saw portrayed at Magdeburg, where priests and monks sail safely amidst a drowning world. And what is more, he himself may, from his safe and sacred vessel, stoop down and rescue perishing men; perhaps confer unspeakable blessings on the soul of that very father whose words so wounded him.

For such ends well may he bear that the arrow should pierce his heart.

Did not a sword pierce thine, O mournful mother of consolations?

And he is certain of his vocation. He does not think as we in the world so often must, "Is God leading me, or the devil? Am I resisting His higher calling in only obeying the humbler call of every-day duty? Am I bringing down blessings on those I love, or curses?"

Brother Martin, without question, has none of these distracting doubts. He may well bear any other anguish which may meet himinthe ways of God, andbecausehe has chosen them. At least he has not to listen to such tales as I have heard lately from a young knight, Ulrich von Hutton, who is studying here at present, and has things to relate of the monks, priests, and bishops in Rome itself which tempt one to think all invisible things a delusion, and all religion a pretence.

Eisenach,January, 1510.

We have passed through a terrible time; if, indeed, we are through it!

The plague has been at Eisenach; and, alas! is here still.

Fritz came home to us as usual at Christmas. Just before he left Erfurt the plague had broken out in the University. But he did not know it. When first he came to us he seemed quite well, and was full of spirits; but on the second day he complained of cold and shivering, with pain in the head, which increased towards the evening. His eyes then began to have a fixed, dim look, and he seemed unable to speak or think long connectedly.

I noticed that the mother watched him anxiously that evening; and at its close, feeling his hands feverish, she said very quietly that she should sit up in his room that night. At first he made some resistance, but he seemed too faint to insist on anything; and as he rose to go to bed, he tottered a little, and said he felt giddy, so that my mother drew his arm within hers and supported him to his room.

Still I did not feel anxious; but when Eva and I reached our room, she said, in that quiet, convincing manner which she had even as a child, fixing her large eyes on mine,—

"Cousin Elsè, Fritz is very ill."

"I think not, Eva," I said; "and no one would feel anxious about him as soon as I should. He caught a chill on his way from Erfurt. You know it was late when he arrived, and snowing fast, and he was so pleased to see us, and so eager in conversation that he would not change his things. It is only a slight feverish cold. Besides, our mother's manner was so calm when she wished us good night. I do not think she is anxious. She is only sitting up with him for an hour or two to see that he sleeps."

"Cousin Elsè," replied Eva, "did you not see the mother's lip quiver when she turned to wish us good night?"

"No, Eva," said I; "I was looking at Fritz."

And so we went to bed. But I thought it strange that Eva, a girl of sixteen, should be more anxious than I was, and I his sister. Hope is generally so strong, and fear so weak, before one has seen many fears realized, and many hopes disappointed. Eva, however, had always a way of seeing into the truth of things. I was very tired with the day's work (for I always rise earlier than usual when Fritz is here, to get everything done before he is about), and I must very soon have fallen asleep. It was not midnight when I was roused by the mother's touch upon my arm.

The light of the lamp she held showed me a paleness in her face and an alarm in her eyes which awoke me thoroughly in an instant.

"Elsè," she said, "go into the boys' room and send Christopher for a physician. I cannot leave Fritz. But do not alarm your father!" she added, as she crept again out of the room after lighting our lamp.

I called Christopher, and in five minutes he was dressed and out of the house. When I returned to our room Eva was sitting dressed on the bed. She had not been asleep, I saw. I think she had been praying, for she held the crucifix in her clasped hands, and there were traces of tears on her cheek, although when she raised her eyes to me, they were clear and tearless.

"What is it, Cousin Elsè?" she said. "When I went for a moment to the door of his room he was talking. It was his voice, but with such a strange, wild tone in it. I think he heard my step, although I thought no one would, I stepped so softly, for he called 'Eva, Eva!' but the mother came to the door and silently motioned me away. Butyoumay go, Elsè," she added, with a passionate rapidity very unusual with her. "Go and see him."

I went instantly. He was talking very rapidly and vehemently, and in an incoherent way it was difficult to understand. My mother sat quite still, holding his hand. His eyes were not bright as in fever, but dim and fixed. Yet he was in a raging fever. His hand, when I touched it, burned like fire, and his face was flushed crimson. I stood there quite silently beside my mother until the physician came. At first Fritz's eyes followed me; then they seemed watching the door for some one else; but in a few minutes the dull vacancy came over them again, and he seemed conscious of nothing.

At last the physician came. He paused a moment at the door, and held a bag of myrrh before him; then advancing to the bed, he drew aside the clothes and looked at Fritz's arm.

"Too plain!" he exclaimed, starting back as he perceived a black swelling there. "It is the plague!"

My mother followed him to the door.

"Excuse me, madam," he said; "life is precious, and I might carry the infection into the city."

"Can nothing be done?" she said.

"Not much!" he said bluntly; and then, after a moment's hesitation, touched by the distress in her face, he returned to the bed-side. "I have touched him," he murmured, as if apologizing to himself for incurring the risk; "the mischief is done, doubtless, already." And taking out his lancet he bled my brother's arm.

Then, after binding up the arm, he turned to me and said,—

"Get cypress and juniper wood, and burn them in a brazier in this room, with rosin and myrrh. Keep your brother as warm as possible—do not let in a breath of air!" And, he added, as I followed him to the door, "on no account suffer him to sleep for a moment,[4]and let no one come near him but you and your mother."

When I returned to the bed-side, after obeying these directions, Fritz's mind was wandering; and although we could understand little that he said, he was evidently in great distress. He seemed to have comprehended the physician's words, for he frequently repeated, "The plague! the plague! I have brought a curse upon my house!" and then he would wander, strangely calling on Martin Luther and Eva to intercede and obtain pardon for him, as if he were invoking saints in heaven; and occasionally he would repeat fragments of Latin hymns.

It was dreadful to have to keep him awake; to have to rouse him, whenever he showed the least symptom of slumber, to thoughts which so perplexed and troubled his poor brain. But on the second night the mother fainted away, and I had to carry her to her room. Her dear thin frame was no heavy weight to bear. I laid her on the bed in our room, which was the nearest. Eva appeared at the door as I stood beside our mother. Her face was as pale as death. Before I could prevent it, she came up to me, and taking my hands said,—

"Cousin Elsè, only promise me one thing;—if he is to die, let me see him once more."

"I dare not promise anything, Eva," I said; "consider the infection!"

"What will the infection matter to me if he dies?" she said; "I am not afraid to die."

"Think of the father and the children, Eva," I said; "If our mother and I should be seized next, what would they do?"

"Chriemhild will soon be old enough to take care of them," she said very calmly; "promise me, promise me, Elsè, or I will see him at once."

And I promised her, and she threw her arms around me, and kissed me. Then I went back to Fritz, leaving Eva chafing my mother's hands. It was of no avail, I thought, to try to keep her from contagion, now that she had held my hands in hers.

When I came again to Fritz's bed-side he was asleep! Bitterly I reproached myself; but what could I have done? He was asleep—sleeping quietly, with soft, even breathing. I had not courage to awake him; but I knelt down and implored the blessed Virgin and all the saints to have mercy on me and spare him. And they must have heard me; for, in spite of my failure in keeping the physician's orders, Fritz began to recover from that very sleep.

Our grandmother says it was a miracle; "unless," she added, "the doctor was wrong!"

He awoke from that sleep refreshed and calm, but weak as an infant.

It was delightful to meet his eyes when first he awoke, with the look of quiet recognition in them, instead of that wild, fixed stare, or that restless wandering; to look once more into his heart through his eyes. He looked at me a long time with a quiet content, without speaking, and then he said, holding out his hand to me,—

"Elsè, you have been watching long here. You look tired; go and rest."

"It rests me best to look at you," I said, "and see you better."

He seemed too weak to persist, and after taking some food and cooling drinks, he fell asleep again, and so did I; for the next thing I was conscious of was our mother gently placing a pillow underneath my head, which had sunk on the bed where I had been kneeling, watching Fritz. I was ashamed of being such a bad nurse; but our mother insisted on my going to our room to seek rest and refreshment. And for the next few days we took it in turns to sit beside him, until he began to regain strength. Then we thought he might like to see Eva; but when she came to the door, he eagerly motioned her away, and said,—

"Do not let her venture near me. Think if I were to bring this judgment of God on her!"

Eva turned away, and was out of sight in an instant; but the troubled, perplexed expression came back into my brother's eyes, and the feverish flush into his face, and it was long before he seemed calm again.

I followed Eva. She was sitting with clasped hands in our room.

"Oh, Elsè," she said, "how altered he is! Are you sure he will live, even now?"

I tried to comfort her with the hope which was naturally so much stronger in me, because I had seen him in the depths from which he was now slowly rising again to life. But something in that glimpse of him seemed to weigh on her very life; and as Fritz recovered, Eva seemed to grow paler and weaker, until the same feverish symptoms came over her which he had learned so to dread, and then the terrible tokens, the plague-spots, which could not be doubted, appeared on the fair, soft arms, and Eva was lying with those dim, fixed, pestilence-veiled eyes, and the wandering brain.

For a day we were able to conceal it from Fritz, but no longer.

On the second evening after Eva was stricken, I found him standing by the window of his room, looking into the street. I shall never forget the expression of horror in his eyes as he turned from the window to me.

"Elsè," he said, "how long have those fires been burning in the streets?"

"For a week," I said. "They are fires of cypress-wood and juniper, and myrrh and pine gums. The physicians say they purify the air."

"I know too well what they are," he said. "And, Elsè," he said, "why is Master Bürer's house opposite closed?"

"He has lost two children," I said.

"And why are those other windows closed all down the street?" he rejoined.

"The people have left, brother," I said; "but the doctors hope the worst is over now."

"O just God!" he exclaimed, sinking on a chair and covering his face; "I was flying from thee, and I have brought the curse on my people!"

Then, after a minute's pause, before I could think of any words to comfort him, he looked up, and suddenly demanded,—

"Who are dead inthishouse, Elsè?"

"None, none," I said.

"Who are stricken?" he asked.

"All the children and the father are well," I said, "and the mother."

"Then Eva is stricken!" he exclaimed—"the innocent for the guilty! She will die and be a saint in heaven, and I, who have murdered her, shall live, and shall see her no more, for ever and for ever."

I could not comfort him. The strength of his agony utterly stunned me. I could only burst into tears, so that he had to try to comfort me. But he did not speak; he only took my hands in his kindly, as of old, without saying another word. At length I said—

"It is not you who brought the plague, dear Fritz; it is God who sent it!"

"I know it is God!" he replied, with such an intense bitterness in his tone that I did not attempt another sentence.

That night Eva wandered much as I watched beside her; but her delirium was quite different from that of Fritz. Her spirit seemed floating away on a quiet stream into some happy land we could not see. She spoke of a palace, of a home, of fields of fragrant lilies, of white-robed saints walking among them with harps and songs, and of One who welcomed her. Occasionally, too, she murmured snatches of the same Latin hymns that Fritz had repeated in his delirium, but in a tone so different, so child-like and happy! If ever she appeared troubled, it was when she seemed to miss some one, and be searching here and there for them; but then she often ended with, "Yes, I know they will come; I must wait till they come." And so at last she fell asleep, as if the thought had quieted her.

I could not hinder her sleeping, whatever the physician said; she looked so placid, and had such a happy smile on her lips. Only once, when she had lain thus an hour quite still, while her chest seemed scarcely to heave with her soft, tranquil breathing, I grew alarmed lest she should glide thus from us into the arms of the holy angels; and I whispered softly, "Eva, dear Eva!"

Her lips parted slightly, and she murmured—

"Not yet; wait tilltheycan come."

And then she turned her head again on the pillow, and slept on.

She awoke quite collected and calm, and then she said quietly—

"Where is the mother?"

"She is resting, darling Eva."

She gave a little contented smile, and then, in broken words at intervals, she said—

"Now, I should like to see Fritz. You promised I should see him again; and now if I die, I think he would like to see me once more."

I went to fetch my brother. He was pacing up and down his room, with the crucifix clasped to his breast. At first, to my surprise, he seemed very reluctant to come; but when I said how much she wished it, he followed me quite meekly into her room. Eva was resuming her old command over us all. She held out her hand, with a look of such peace and rest on her face.

"Cousin Fritz," she said at intervals, as she had strength, "you have taught me so many things; you have done so much for me! Now I wish you to learn my sentence, that if I go, it may make you happy, as it does me." Then very slowly and distinctly she repeated the words—"'God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son.' Cousin Fritz," she added, "I do not know the end of the sentence. I have not been able to find it; but you must find it. I am sure it comes from a good book, it makes me love God so much to think of it. Promise me you will find it, if I should die."

He promised, and she was quite satisfied. Her strength seemed exhausted, and in a few moments, with my arms round her as I sat beside her, and with her hand in Fritz's, she fell into a deep, quiet sleep.

I felt from that time she would not die, and I whispered very softly to Fritz—

"She will not die; she will recover, and you will not have killed her; you will have saved her!"

But when I looked into his face, expecting to meet a thankful, happy response, I was appalled by the expression there.

He stood immovable, not venturing to withdraw his hand, but with a rigid, hopeless look in his worn, pale face, which contrasted terribly with the smile of deep repose on the sleeping face on which his eyes were fixed.

And so he remained until she awoke, when his whole countenance changed for an instant to return her smile.

Then he said softly, "God bless you, Eva!" and pressing her hand to his lips, he left the room.

When I saw him again that day, I said—

"Fritz, you have saved Eva's life! She rallied from the time she saw you."

"Yes," he replied, very gently, but with a strange impassiveness in his face; "I think that may be true. I have saved her."

But he did not go in her room again; and the next day, to our surprise and disappointment, he said suddenly that he must leave us.

He said few words of farewell to any of us, and would not see Eva to take leave of her. He said it might disturb her.

But when he kissed me before he went, his hands and his lips were as cold as death. Yet as I watched him go down the street, he did not once turn to wave a last good-bye, as he always used to do; but slowly and steadily he went on till he was out of sight.

I turned back into the house with a very heavy heart; but when I went to tell Eva Fritz was gone, and tried to account for his not coming to take leave of her, because I thought it would give her pain (and it does seem to me rather strange of Fritz), she looked up with her quiet, trustful, contented smile, and said,—

"I am not at all pained, Cousin Elsè. I know Fritz had good reasons for it—some good, kind reasons—because he always has; and we shall see him again as soon as he feels it right to come."

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