Night had fallen, the noise of the festival was hushed; a lamp still burned dismally in Correntian's cell where he was sitting before a large volume--but he was not reading. He leaned back in his chair, brooding gloomily. Suddenly there was a light tap at the door, and he called out in much surprise the usual "Deo gratias!" for the rule of Saint Benedict does not allow two brethren to be alone together in one cell. It must be an extraordinary occasion that could excuse such a breach of discipline. The door opened and there entered, divested of his festal attire, and dressed in a monk's black robe, the newly ordained priest.
"What can you want with me?" asked Correntian with a look of contempt. "What can the spoilt darling of the indolent brethren, who can not sufficiently fill up their time with prayers, what can he want of me whom he always was afraid of?"
"Do not mock me, Correntian," said Donatus with much solemnity, "I want your help. Do not forget that we are brothers."
"Brethren of the order, but not brothers in heart. Leave me. You are sinning against the rules of the order, and you gain nothing by it, for I hate you as much as I love God and the Church."
"It is precisely because you hate me that I come to you."
"Do you hope to propitiate me? Do you think you can befool me with the honeyed slaver of your lips as you have the weaker brethren? Never flatter yourself. I am your enemy, and shall remain so."
"But I tell you again it is not a friend, it is an enemy that I seek. And if you could hate me more than I hate myself, all the more would I seek you."
"I do not understand you."
"Listen, and you will understand. I ask you to be my father confessor because you are the only one who does not love me, the only one who has no pity on me; now do you understand? The others love me too much and they show mercy to me. But I ask for no mercy, I desire only stern inexorable justice--that is why I seek you."
Correntian turned towards him at last, and looked astonished at his agitated countenance.
"Are you so much in earnest?" he said.
"In fearful earnest!" cried the young man with a burst of despair, leaning his forehead against the bare wall. "Oh, Correntian, for years I have hated, abhorred you; only a few days ago I was angry with you because one of the brethren told me that you wanted to blind me, when I was first brought here. Oh! would you had done so, it would have been better for me."
"I understand," said Correntian coldly. "The tempter seeks you in woman's form, and you are weak. The curse will run its course as sure as the stars, and you cannot escape it."
"No, no! for God's sake, not that, only not that. Correntian, I will perform any penance you lay upon me, for none can be too great for my sins. The Lord hath loved me, and drawn me to Him as he did Peter, and like Peter I have betrayed Him at the first cock-crow. I was not faithful even so long as I wore the festal robe, not so long as while I stood before the altar, not so long as the breath which wafted my vows to Heaven! Cast me out into misery as my father did, I am worthy of nothing better, unworthy of the compassion of men. I am mere dust, flung to every wind; cast it out and scatter it to the blast!"
Correntian slowly nodded his head.
"It has all happened just as I said it would.
"You are not made of the stuff from which the Conqueror chooses his fighting men. Begotten among the wanton joys of a frivolous court, nourished at the breast of a wanton woman, your whole breeding has been wantonness. The loving glances that you raise to Heaven are wanton, they wanton with the sun and the blue sky that soothe your senses; the last looks you send after your dead brethren in the grave are wanton, they wanton with the roses that the wind bends over it. Nay, even the gaze you fix in devout prayer on the image of our Mother Mary is wanton, as it looks at the fair woman, at the lovely work of the painter's brush. And how then should it not wanton with the first living woman of flesh and blood who comes before you, as the first woman in Paradise appeared to the first man. You are yourself as fair to see as sin, and pleasure-loving women will everywhere run after you; for the doors by which sin may enter into you and go forth from you, are in truth fair and enticing, and those doors are your love-inviting eyes."
"True, alas! too true. But what am I to do? Can I shut my eyes?" asked the youth.
"Yes," was the terrible answer, and Correntian drew the desk with the heavy Latin Bible towards him, and hastily turned to a page where it was written, "If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee."
The youth turned pale. He stared at his sinister judge as though a ghost had sprung from the earth before him, a figure so incomprehensible and inconceivable that his gaze could not take it in. The monk sat before the big book, his eyes cast down; the uncertain light of the dingy lamp cast two round shadows in his pale face, like the empty eye-holes of a skull. The youth felt as if he were looking at his own face--corpse-like--eyeless! And yet so calm, so sublime!--and the moon-light that streamed in floated round the bald crown with its narrow fringe of black hair, like a nimbus, in strange, livid contrast to the red light of the lamp. The hour-glass ran calmly on, in its even flow neither hurrying nor tarrying though hearts might throb or break. Minute after minute passed--the deadly horror that filled the culprit's breast had paralysed his tongue. The judge leant back quietly in his chair, and gave him time to grasp the idea--even on the rack an interval of rest is allowed. At last the young man said with quivering lips,
"No man ever yet did such a thing!"
"It is because no man ever did it that it is worth doing."
"Correntian," continued the youth, but so timidly, so softly, as if the air even might not hear, or as if he feared that the sound of his words might rouse a sleeping tiger, "Correntian, why did you never do it?"
But the dreadful creature was not roused. Without moving a feature, without raising an eye-lash, Correntian replied,
"Because I was strong enough to triumph though I could see; the harder the fight the greater the prize."
Again they both were silent. The radiant disk of the moon rose higher and higher over the convent-roofs and towers, and looked in with a tender smile. Longingly, eagerly, as if it were for the last time, and as if he must harvest all the light ere it was yet night, the boy's large brown eyes drank in the soft radiance. No, no, things have not gone so far--not yet. He may yet fight and conquer. He covered his face with his hands as if for protection, as if he saw already the dagger's point that was turned against it. No, he will fight with all the strength of his soul; fight not for his eternal salvation only, but for his eyes too.
Well, he will look neither to the right hand nor to the left, he knows well that now every forbidden glance must bring him nearer to the murderous iron that threatens him. "Do not look that way; you are looking at your death," this is what he must say when temptation beckons him, and will not that terror enable him to conquer?
He fell on his knees before Correntian,
"Time--give me time, a respite," he groaned with pale lips, like a man condemned to death.
"Coward!" said Correntian contemptuously.
"No, do not call me so," cried the youth, striving to man himself. "Send me out into the wilderness to fight for my life with the snow-storm and wild beasts, or out to the land of the Saracens to shed my blood for our Mother Church. You will not see me tremble, but do not ask me to turn the knife against my own eyes; it is our strongest instinct to cherish them, even stronger than to preserve our life. For though I have often heard of men who plunged a dagger into their heart, I never heard of one who thrust it into his eyes. Correntian, have mercy. Grant me sight, to see--not the earth--but the heavens only, that eternal home for which we all strive. The wanderer, who is nearing his final rest, feels his strength revived as he sees the metal star that shines on the tower of his home, or the smoke that rises from the paternal roof, and he struggles with renewed vigour to reach the longed-for goal. How much more must we when we are weary, be refreshed by a glance upwards at the real stars, at the distant clouds which look down upon us from our Father's House. Who does not revive after such a prospect, and hasten joyfully forward? Grant me sight for that, and that only, it draws me on and upwards."
"Sensual fool," said Correntian smiling, "Do you think to reach Heaven by roads that are indicated by earthly light, do you believe that you will lose the way by not being able to see--as an earthly traveller might fail to find his home if he lost his eyes? It is from within and not from without that the light shines which must show you the path to Heaven, and the darker all is without, the brighter it is within; that path lies through earthly darkness. None have trodden it on whose eyes death has not first laid its black shroud; and do you not believe that the heavenly light which can irradiate the night of death can also illumine our deepest earthly darkness? Do you not believe that God the Lord is mighty to open in your soul a spiritual eye instead of the bodily eyes you sacrifice to Him, by which you may discern more and fairer things than any mortal yet has gazed on?"
"Oh Correntian--I do understand you--I admire you, but I cannot imitate you--not yet, not yet. If I could, then I should not be the sinner that I am, and you would not need to judge me. Give me time--for eternal mercy's sake which God himself shows to sinners--for Christ's blood sake which was shed in love for us--give me time."
"It is God that has spoken the sentence, not I--the execution of it is in your power, I have nothing farther to say," and Correntian rose. "Now leave me, for it is unlawful for us to remain any longer in secret conference--this is not the confessional."
The youth stood yet a moment before him, hesitating.
"Correntian--you despise me for not doing what the scripture commands?"
"What do you care whether I esteem you or not?"
"Everything--from this hour everything!" cried the youth passionately.
"You are made of other stuff than I am," said Correntian, with a strong gesture of repulsion. "My whole nature rejects you. If you were a brave warrior, or a wandering Minnesänger, I might esteem you, for you would be what you seem. But as a monk I despise you; for under the mask of self-denial you cloke worldliness and vanity, and the sacred robe you wear smells of the burning of wild and fevered desires. This is the true hell-fire, and fearful is the ravage it may commit if it is not trampled out in time."
"I will trample it out--before God I will!" cried the tortured boy. "Oh! cannot a drop of holy water mixed with the tears of true repentance extinguish the very fires of hell? Repentance and grace--what can the devil do against them?"
"There is but one moisture that can surely and for ever extinguish the flames in which you are burning, and that is the limpid crystal in which all the world is mirrored; and it must be spilt by your own hand, poured over your own cheeks. It is indeed a precious dew, more precious than tears or blood, and because there is no man who would not keep it at the cost even of his life, it is so precious that only the highest crown of martyrdom can requite it! You may win this crown--you may rise out of the pool of sin of which the flames are already licking you, to be a saint before whom everyone shall kneel--I the first, I who have so long despised you; and earth and heaven shall rejoice over you--! And all this bliss you may obtain by one stroke of a knife, guided by a steady hand! Now go and choose."
The door closed on the victim. "Now go--and choose." The young man leaned against the outer door-post unable to go any farther. His heart quaked and a deadly chill ran through his veins like cold lead at the thought of such a choice. The highest crown of martyrdom! What! could he win this with one stroke, without any inward vocation or natural ripeness for it? And even if he were to succeed in snatching this super-sensual extasy in one moment by one hasty stroke, could he bear it and support it worthily? And he must not do the deed for the sake of the crown--what we do for a reward has no value. It must be an act of deliverance, of deliverance from the utmost danger--but was it indeed so with him--was he so weak, so wanting in self-control that he needs must shut himself up in a dungeon of eternal night like a thief to keep himself from stealing forbidden fruit?
And oh! what a dungeon it will be! Will he not be crushed in the narrow confines of such impenetrable darkness--when his eye can see no space before it--neither before it nor around it? Will not all the torments of being buried alive come upon him and stop his breath so that his heart will burst under the pressure of the stagnant blood?
Drop after drop of cold sweat ran down from his forehead. What had he done to deserve a punishment so unspeakably horrible? Was he indeed a thief--had he stolen the forbidden fruit? No, he had not done it, he had only longed for it, and as soon as he was conscious of the temptation he had prayed and scourged himself till it was conquered. Was temptation in itself a sin? Nay else there would have been no Saints, for there was not one of them that had not had to pass through some struggles. Else Father Onofrius of saintly memory would not have needed to burn off during a night of visitation all the fingers of his hands, nor need the holy Founder of the Order, Saint Benedict, have accustomed himself to sleep on nettles! And must he do more than they all had done, to win the crown of the Saints? No, no; this could not be the will of God; it was Correntian's stern severity that lay such fearful penance upon him; and outraged nature, revolting against it, tore him from the spot--in wild flight from the lashing of this superhuman asceticism--away--away--over all the barriers of his tortured conscience. His body, numbed as it were into unconsciousness, bereft of all power of resistance and urged by ungovernable terror, obeyed the impulse--he fled from the door of the terrible monk, as if he might open it again and by one commanding word stay the flight of these trembling vital impulses and compel them to a hideous, suicidal, annihilating struggle--Away--he must away. He fled down the steps with the swiftness of the whirlwind, pushed back the rusty bolt of the court-yard door and flew out into the fresh air, across the yard to the porter's little gate-house. Without pausing to consider, he seized the key of the outer gate from the table, unseen by the sleeping warder--opened the gate and went out into the moonlit night, without stopping to take breath; on and away to the heath--to the harsh mother that bore him--as though he there might find counsel and consolation. Never before had his feet borne him on such an expedition, and yet some unconscious urging guided him on the way that his eyes had so often longingly traced from the turret-window. Up he went, higher and higher, his feet winged by terror--higher and higher as he ascended, rose the guiding light of the broad, bright moon in the pure sky.
His face was streaming with the sweat of exhaustion--fully two hours had gone by when at last he reached the height, and before him lay the wide, level heath, a boundless lake of light. The white mists that floated and broke over it were bathed--soaked--in moonlight, like silvery billows--now rising, now falling--now floating formless, and anon swirling together into fearful wreathing pillars as if they would overwhelm the lonely wanderer in their silent ghostly tide. Light--light, of which the eye might take its fill--across to the invisible distance and to where the great Ortler peak seemed wrapped in sleep and dreams. Light and peace--chaste and divine solitude! the hapless tortured child of man stood still in intoxicating contemplation, and spread out his arms to the splendour now first revealed to him, "Almighty Lord--Thou that art great!" he prayed aloud, "Thou that art merciful! Thou hast shed upon the world this inexhaustible ocean of light, and wouldst Thou rejoice if a miserable worm of earth should bury himself in the night of the grave?" And the words of the Psalmist sprang from his soul to his lips, "O Lord my God! Thou art become exceeding glorious, Thou art clothed with majesty and honour, Thou deckest Thyself with light as it were with a garment, Thou spreadest out the heavens like a curtain, Thou makest the clouds Thy chariot and walkest upon the wings of the wind." And then he hastened on again, farther and farther. Psalteries and harps seemed to sound in his ears while his feet were cleaving the illusory intangible flood that closed over him without wetting him. Thus might Christ have walked dry foot over the waters--for the foundation he stood on was God, and all earthly things seemed to have vanished like the mist.
And yet the Son of God perished on the cross in the anguish of death like a torn up flower, and endured in patience and bore the woes of the whole earth--He who could command the elements, who had need only to spread his wings in order to soar away into the fields of eternal bliss! God, the All-merciful, the Omnipotent, suffered this to happen to his own Son!
Again he stood still, as if face to face with a problem that must be solved before he could go any farther; and he bowed his head, saying, "It must be so, for suffering is our portion; that which we call the hand of fate and which crushes us to the earth, is in fact the hand of God laid in love upon our shoulders--and what we call the anguish of death is but His fatherly kiss that drinks our soul! For so great is He and so small are we that we are destroyed if He do but touch us. And in like manner he gave his only Son, raising him up that we might see and acknowledge what His love is. Woe to him who resists his sufferings--he resists God! O! Father, I will bless Thy hand even if it grind me to powder--I will die in Thy kiss and the agony of death shall be bliss to me."
Suddenly--it seemed to him that the fearful Correntian was standing behind him, saying with freezing scorn, "Thus you swore just now and yet you refuse to make the first sacrifice that the Lord requires of you! Look, He holds out a craving hand that you may lay your eyes in it, and He says graciously, 'Give them to Me that I may keep them for thee till I give them back to thee one day to see more gloriously in Heaven above'--just as a father might take from the hand of a child some dangerous instrument with which it might hurt itself; and you, like the wilful child, cling to the dangerous possession and push away the hand that asks when it might strike."
"Woe is me! Correntian! dark, avenging angel! must you follow me wherever I go?" groaned the tormented soul. "Whither may I fly from you; and where can I save you, my poor eyes, from the two-edged sword that he has planted in my heart there to gnaw in fury against myself."
Then again he heard the threatening voice, "Coward, what do you fear? And what is it after all? You destroy a mirror in which hell focuses its rays--you destroy a transparent vessel, and empty out once for all the fount of those tears which you then need never again shed. One stroke--and it is done; a stroke so slight that a child might drive it home, a hail-stone, a thorn--and you tremble at that?"
Nay, nay, it was not the stroke of the knife, not the flow of blood that he quaked at. In losing his eyes, he must extinguish the sun, moon, and stars, put out all light with this lovely world that is as the very presentment of God--plunge himself into nothingness, an outcast in the midst of the joys of all creation.
The sweat poured down his face, his knees failed him; he sank down in the tall, reedy grass, sobbing as he cooled his burning face in the moist, dewy earth.
The heath lay silent and still, as a mother might refrain from disturbing her weeping son; thus the night wore on; dew fell on the victim's head--he heeded it not; the bright moon paled and the young day painted the first streaks on the rim of the eastern horizon--he saw it not. The icy morning-breeze swept keenly down from the glaciers--he did not stir.
Presently a silvery tinkle sounded across the heath through the morning air; it was the bell ringing for matins at St. Valentine's. This roused the penitent from his torpor, and so strong are the ties of obedience that at the first stroke the simple sound of the bell recalled the whole scattered troop of his vital faculties to their duty. His rebellious defiance, the first impulse of disobedience he had ever known, and which had driven him to his nocturnal flight, vanished like a wild dream. As the bell was ringing up here for matins, he would just have time to get down to mass; for prayers were an hour earlier here than at Marienberg. If the brethren met together for common prayer in the familiar chapel--and he--he were missing!--An unspeakable sorrow came over him--a home-sick longing for the Abbot, for his companions, for the place where he was so tenderly brought up; and without further delay he started up and hastened back to the convent. As day grew broader reflection and composure returned to him, and he was ashamed of his weakness. Without once looking behind him, he left the heath--his mother earth--the earth that had drunk his despairing tears--and walked stoutly on, down to Marienberg again; but in his too great haste he missed his way and suddenly found himself on a thickly wooded hill at one side of the monastery. An extensive ruin stood up among the dark umbrageous branches; he knew where he was now--on the hill of Castellatz, where stood the remains of an ancient Roman castle that had served at a later period as a stronghold of the Trasp family. Huge walls lay fallen one upon the other; walls that had once been inhabited by a defiant race who had borne themselves manfully in many a bloody fight. The labouring peasants still dug out bones of extraordinary size--broad angular skulls of Huns and high narrow skulls of Goths--they had all fought round these old walls and none of them had yielded, only faith had conquered them. When Ulrich, the pious scion of the race, had built the convent at Marienberg because he thought that a House of God was the surest fortress that he could take refuge in, he razed the castle to its foundation so that no enemy of the Church should henceforth make use of it as a bulwark against the people of God.
Thus fell the proud walls that had defied the power of man. The youth trod the soil that had a thousand times been drenched in blood, with a reverent step; peace now reigned over the spot, and silence--a Sabbath stillness. High above his head the shadowy tree-tops rustled as though they were murmuring some long forgotten heroic legend, or a battle-song of which the echoes had long since died away. And he, the peaceful son of that stern mother, the Church--he stood there as one ashamed of his own feebleness, and humbly folding his hands he prayed--"I am no warrior, no hero--I need not fight with the sword or measure the strength of my young limbs, man for man with others--my heroism must lie in obedience. Strengthen me therein, my Lord and God, that I may never fear to fulfil Thy will."
And he went forward again, renewed in strength; here--on this old scene of many struggles, where every blade of grass had sprung from blood that heroes had spilt--here, in this bitter hour, he had grown to be a man and his courage had ripened within him; courage for that hardest fight of all, for the heroism of suffering. His resolve was formed--not in mad terror and haste as before in Correntian's cell, but quietly, clearly, aye joyfully--his resolve to purchase his salvation. He will await the Lord's will, and if the Lord give him the strength to close his eyes against all temptation, he will accept it as a gift of mercy saving him from the worst. If he fall into one single fault more--if he turn one single longing look more on a woman's form--then he will carry out the sentence as it has this night been passed upon him--for then he will know that it is God's will.
A broad sunbeam broke through the bushes which grew on all sides, their tough roots forcing their way between the grey stones; close by his side a bird twittered in a juniper bush which grew out of a ruined window arch. The little creature had its nest there and it looked at him with its keen eyes to see if it had any cause to fear for its brood; and there in the shrub sat the little birds with gaping, yellow beaks clinging in helpless fright to the swaying branches and screaming for their mother. A pretty picture!--How many a mother might have sat, long ago, under this arch, anxiously watching the foe that threatened her nest while the father was far away--at the chase or fighting in bloody feud in some enemy's country for all that was dear to him.
"Oh! sweet and wonderful bonds of love, and faith, and closest ties of blood! can it be that ye are not of God!" The question came involuntarily from the depth of the young man's heart.
And there!--as if ghosts walked in the ruins--there was a sudden movement among the shrubs; a tall girlish figure broke hastily through the boughs and behind her came a boy--a sturdy lad, the wood-cutter to the monastery. He threw his arm round the girl's buxom form and whispered, "And if I ask you where you went so early, what will you say then?"
"To gather berries," she cried laughing and swinging her basket.
"Just wait and I will kiss your lips till they are so red that folks will think you tumbled down among the berries," said the lad. "Come, we will find a quiet place to rest in." And he disappeared again amongst the bushes dragging the girl with him without much trouble.
Donatus hastily turned to go, but suddenly they both gave a little cry of alarm, "O Lord! a wild woman of the woods!" and they fled crossing themselves. Donatus stood still; "What was there? what had frightened the pair so much?" He went towards the spot where they had been sitting; the briars hid a ruined arch-way through which he could look into the desolate castle-yard all overgrown with weeds, and there--wonder of wonders--lay a woman, asleep on a bank of turf artificially constructed and screened by a projection of the wall, that might at some former time have formed a niche where the poor and wretched sat on a stone bench to eat the meal they had begged. But the woman who was sleeping there was neither poor nor wretched; there she lay wrapped in a rich cloak of costly furs and dressed in a green robe embroidered with gold--like a forest-fairy! The playing beams of the morning sun that fell upon her through the whispering boughs, threw a bright light on her cheeks that were rosy with sleep, and the morning breeze blew her soft, silky hair across her dreaming brow, like a film of golden vapour.
Donatus stood as if spell-bound, incapable of going either forwards or backwards--he gazed and gazed and the whole world around him was forgotten. Was it a real living woman--or a trick from hell--it seemed to him that it was the same woman--yes, it was she--! She opened her eyes and a flash of delight, brighter than the morning sunshine sparkled in those eyes.
"Is it you! you?" she exclaimed, springing up. And as Donatus looked into her blue eyes he knew that it was she--she, who, dressed in a peasant's garb, had yesterday so bewildered his senses--she, who so lately had stood before him as the maid-of-honour. And to-day she was here--up here, sleeping on the grass, with no roof over her head--like a wood-fairy--Could she be indeed a real woman and yet capable of such sudden changes? He had never believed in fairies, but could there be such beings? and were they good or evil spirits? And while he thought over all this he stood as if rooted to the spot, regarding the wonderful apparition with astonishment. He saw her sign to him, he heard her call him, and he made no reply--It was not real, it was only a vision, a dream.
"Are you turned to stone? Wait a minute, I will go to you as you will not come to me." The voice was close to his ear and the brilliant figure lightly climbed up the ruined stone-work and in a moment was standing close to him under the arch and bending over towards him.
Those azure lakes, in which, only yesterday, his whole consciousness had been lost, were again close to his intoxicated gaze and pouring their flood of blueness into his soul. It stopped his breath--it ran through all his veins--he leaned against the mullion of the window like one stunned, and gazed and gazed--he could not take his eyes off her--Heaven and earth had faded from his ken--She was too lovely!
"How come you here? What has troubled you so? You are pale and your hair is wet with night dews?" she asked him, softly stroking his tangled curls with her slender white hand.
He staggered as if a flash of lightning had struck him without destroying him; a strange shiver ran through his limbs, a gentle tremor as when the morning breeze shakes the dews of night from the topmost branches of a tree; and nearer, nearer comes the sweet face, and warm breath floats round him--Still he stirs not.
"Do not fix your eyes on me so--as if I were not a creature of flesh and blood," she whispered in his ear. "Put away your sternness; I deserve it of you. For your sake I have passed the night here with my people; here in this uncanny ruin, under the open sky, only to find some way of seeing you again. You have done for me, once for all, with your dreamy face and your severity, and deny it as you will--that which drove you at night out of your narrow cell was my image which pursued you, and while you fled from me you went in truth to seek me! Have I guessed rightly?" And she laid her arm softly round his neck and her lips were close to his ear, while she spoke so that every word was like the breathing of a kiss. He let his head drop and lean against her bosom--he felt dizzy, as if in that instant he had fallen from some towering height. She took him caressingly by the chin, raising his head and looking longingly into his eyes.
"Oh, those eyes! those maddening eyes. Who looks into them is lost! A man who has such eyes as yours can never be a monk!" she exclaimed in a tone of tender jest. "Those eyes give the lie to all your severity--they look fire and kindle fire."
"And that fire shall be extinguished for ever!" cried Donatus suddenly, tearing himself from her arms as if roused from a dream. "It is well for me that you have warned me. With such eyes a man can never be a monk!--it is God himself who has spoken by your lips."
And he fled away as from the City of Destruction, leaving the temptress startled and astonished. She called after him to stay--she implored, she conjured him--in vain. The matins bell was ringing in the valley below, and he heard that above all her tempting; that was a mightier call. Like a hunted deer that can find no shelter, the unhappy man fled back to the sacred cloister walls where only rest and peace were to be found.
The gatekeeper on awaking had sought everywhere for the key in the utmost terror, but he had said nothing for fear of being punished, and as Donatus came in he started up angrily--"Who dared have done it?" But he was pacified as soon as he recognized him.
"You!" he said smiling. "Oh! you may be forgiven, for you are to be trusted."
"Aye, you are indeed to be trusted," said a voice suddenly behind him, and Correntian stood in the doorway of the little gate-house.
"Oh, Correntian!" cried the youth, making a movement as though to throw himself on his breast; but Correntian drew back a step.
"That will do," he said. "You know the rules of our order forbid such caresses. But I repeat it--you are to be trusted--for as you have come back to-day you now will never flee!"
The day was drawing to its close. It was a sultry evening; lead coloured clouds swept across the sky; the swallows flew uneasily round and round the convent towers, their wings widely spread as if the heavy storm rack weighed upon them and hindered their flight. The veiled sunlight threw but a faint shadow on the sundial, pointing to the RomanVII.
Vespers were ended, the brethren were walking in the garden, silent for the most part and oppressed by the stormy atmosphere; not a leaf was stirring, even the bees hummed but lazily as they went from flower to flower, inconstant to each and seeking no plunder.
The Abbot detained Donatus as he was going into the house.
"Where are you going all alone, Donatus?" he called out. The youth stood still, but was silent, and the Abbot beckoned him to come back to his side.
"What ails you, my son?" he asked. "You seem to be ill. Your temples are throbbing and your eyes have a feverish wandering glitter; you have refused every kind of nourishment since yesterday--Tell me what ails you?"
"Nothing, father; I am quite well."
"Then some new temptation assails you, my son; for it is of no avail to tell me that all is well with you as usual," said the Abbot, and he drew him aside into a retired vine-alley. "You cannot deceive me, for I have brought you up from the time when you were four years old. My watchful eye has been upon you night and day, in joy and in grief, in health and in sickness. I know every line of your face and mark every shade that passes over it, and you have become so completely one with me that every throb of your heart is felt in mine, and every burden that weighs on your soul oppresses mine. You cannot deceive me, and I am filled with a cruel forboding, as if some fearful evil were lowering over your darkened brow."
Donatus breathed painfully under the Abbot's searching gaze; he was like a sick man who conceals his sufferings the longest from those that love him most. His eyes fell; an unutterable and tender sorrow came over him for the faithful guardian whom he purposed to betray in so frightful a manner as soon as sleep should have closed his watchful eyes.
"You are silent! You are concealing some evil from me?" continued the Abbot. "For I never before saw you thus. I am not satisfied at your having had so much private talk with Correntian since yesterday--and indeed one of the brethren declared that he had seen you steal at night to Correntian's cell! What can you two have to say to each other?--Why, he has been your mortal enemy ever since you were old enough to think! How is this! when such an unnatural alliance is formed there must be some terrible trouble or dividing of heart at the bottom of it. You are young and generous, you indeed may forget and honestly forgive--but not Correntian--never. He is a rock on which many a poor young heart has struck and bled to death when only a loving hand was needed to rescue it. It is this hard nature of his that alienates him from us all, and it is with the greatest anxiety that I see you falling into his power."
Donatus walked on in silence and reserve by the side of the Abbot, who waited in vain for his answer.
Presently the Abbot stood still, as if he would force the young man to look at him. "My son," he said, "Do you remember the evening when that sinister man tore you from your nurse's lap, and how you struggled and screamed till I came and took you in my arms? Do you remember how you threw your arms round my neck and clung to me, and how I myself put you into your little bed, and you would not leave go of my hand till you had sobbed yourself to sleep? This heart of mine is still the same as when you found refuge in it, these arms are the same as those to which you then ran for protection; throw yourself into them again, my son, and shake off the burden that torments you, so that I may once more protect you against the powers of darkness that threaten you."
Donatus could bear it no longer; tears rushed to his eyes, and crying out, "My father, my dearest father!" he threw himself into the Abbot's arms. The two men stood clasped in a mute embrace, but at this instant of sacred silence Correntian came hurrying up.
"For God's sake," he cried, "go in! The storm is just over our heads, and it will be a fearful one," and he dragged them apart as if in dutiful anxiety for their safety.
They went into the house in silence. It was now bed-time; the younger brethren went to the dormitories, the elders each to his own cell.
"Good night, my son," said the Abbot, and his eye once more rested on Donatus with a mournful and searching glance. "Remember my words! And one thing more: Go up to brother Eusebius, and see if he needs anything. I am sorry that he should have felt too feeble to-day to come to table. Besides a talk with the wise old man will do you as much good, as a cooling draught." Then he called to the other brethren, "See, all of you, to the fires and lights, it will be a dreadful night. At midnight we perform the mass for the soul of the Lady Uta; see that you none of you oversleep yourselves!"
Up in Eusebius' cell, as the Abbot had desired him, sat Donatus, opposite to his old friend in the dim light from the little window; the lurid clouds swept on in endless succession, grey on darker grey.
Eusebius was weaker than usual, but he was sitting up half-buried in books, parchments and instruments, writing-materials, rulers, compasses, and what not. For of all the fields over which the human mind had roamed there was not one which father Eusebius, in his quiet cell, had not explored and investigated. While he talked Donatus' fingers were unconsciously playing in their fevered restlessness with the thousand objects that were lying about, and thus his hand fell on a large pair of compasses; they were half open, and the two sharp points were parted. He took them up as if absorbed in reflection, he closed his eyes and laid the two points on his eye-lids.
"I could easily put my eyes out with these," said he thoughtfully. "Both at once with one blow. With a knife or dagger I should have to strike twice, and even if I had the courage for the first--for the second never--no never!"
Eusebius took the compasses out of his hand, and laid them on the table. "What mad words are you saying! What has put such hideous ideas into your head?"
Donatus looked wildly at him; his eyes glared strangely in the gloom that had gradually spread itself in the little room.
"I have often thought lately that a man who would fain avoid all love must put his eyes out," he said in a low and strangely tremulous voice, like a broken lute jarred by the wind.
Eusebius shook his head slowly and disapprovingly.
"Of what use would that be?" he said. "It would come all the same. However sadly a man may picture it to himself, and fancy he has hedged himself in from it--man's wit and man's presumption always succumb to it; nay, even if he tore out his eyes and stopped his ears, it would be of no avail. Who would dare suppose he could prevent a tree from budding and sprouting in February? He can pull off the leaves, and cut off the branches, but he can not stop the rising sap that is working within. And it is not the devil that stirs the sap in the tree, and the blood in man--no, it is all wonderfully ordered by God the Lord who has made us thus. And though one of us may have succeeded in resisting the law of nature, it is only by some special grace of God who has stood by him, and helped him with particular favour; but that which he has vanquished in the fight is not the devil, but his own weakness which hindered him from freeing himself from the universal law to which all creatures are subject."
Donatus started up in horror. "Woe is me," he cried, "I may not listen to you! What spirit possesses you, your very words are a crime, God help you!" And snatching up the compasses with which he had been playing, the boy fled from the room.
"Donatus!" called the old man, rising hastily to follow him. But a strange dizziness came over him, and he sank back in his chair; his hands and feet alike refused their service. The door of the cell had fallen shut, the old man was alone with his books and manuscripts. He looked up in silent resignation at the wide and stormy heavens. The winds were rushing and roaring round the tower, nearer and nearer came the storm--but to the old man it seemed as if all that surrounded him were passing into the far, far distance. Farther and farther away sounded the rolling thunder, and the outlines of the narrow walls that enclosed him grew fainter and fainter. They were parting asunder, vanishing away, these earthly walls and bonds, and infinity lay before him.
The hour-glass on the table had run down; it was the hour at which he was wont to turn it, and as the last grain of sand ran through, the old habit made him try to put out his hand; but the hand fell helpless by his side--the sand had ceased to run. The thunders paused, the winds held their breath, the light was extinguished. "And yet it will come!" he whispered with his last sigh, and the liberated soul soared away into the empyrean without pain or struggle. There he sat silent and peaceful--the lonely dreamer, his head sunk on his breast, his hands folded--sleeping the eternal sleep.
A thunder-clap came crashing down on the convent, such a clap as shook the old building to the foundations, and all that were living crossed themselves in terror; only the still sleeper up in his solitary tower will wake and tremble no more. The brethren had all shrunk away to their beds; Correntian only remained without, calmly defying the uproar of the elements. Suddenly there was a repeated hasty and terrified knocking at the convent-gate; the porter did not hear it for the roaring of the storm, but at last it caught Correntian's ever watchful ear. He went in and opened the door; outside there stood a strange child clothed in rags; her beseeching eyes shone with a weird brightness in the darkness, the storm and rain tossed her waving hair and it shone with a reddish gleam in the fitful flashes of the lightning.
"Where is Donatus?" asked the trembling child.
"Donatus!" exclaimed Correntian in horror. "Are the messengers of Hell sent for him already? Away with you--your eyes shine in the darkness like an owl's--your feet shall not cross this sacred threshold!" and he made the sign of the cross over her; but she folded her hands over her innocent bosom and threw herself at the priest's feet.
"My lord! my lord! my mother is dying, she was Donatus' nurse--she asks to see him; just once more grant her this last comfort."
Correntian pushed her wildly from him, "His nurse--is she there in spite of our prohibition? And has that snake engendered another snake that the race may not die out? Away with you, leave clasping my knees, or I will crush you like an adder."
"My lord! my lord!" cried the child wildly. "My mother is dying down there in the wood--without shelter--in the storm and rain. Pity, oh, pity--Donatus, where is he? Oh Donatus!" The storm carried away her words, the door closed with a loud clatter; no one could hear her cry of anguish, for it could not reach the monks in the dormitory, above the rushing and roaring of the rain in the dragon-headed gargoyles.
"Alas! and woe!" rang through the night. "Woe!" howled the storm from the forest as though with a human voice--"Woe!" groaned the whole terror-stricken earth under the crashing thunderbolts which fell clap upon clap in inextinguishable fury, rending the trees to their roots.
Dumbly and silently the old stronghold of faith stood on the giddy height, facing the unchained elements with its stony brow; and the uproarious strife raged round about it, as if it were bent on tearing it from its rocky foundations and hurl it into the roaring abyss. What is the meaning of all this fury and tumult, why have the whole rage and might of the elements concentrated themselves on this spot, why does the hand of Terror knock so fearfully at these silent gates, of all others, to-night?
They are the agonised cries of Nature, the eternal mother, over one of her children who this night is outraging her and himself; who is struggling in solitude with the very madness of self-annihilation, with none by to pity him. She rouses the brethren from their sleep, she thunders in their ears, she shouts to them in the wailing of the storm and in torrents of tears, "Rise up--save your brother!" They hear the warning indeed, but they understand it not; they start in horror from their beds and cross themselves, "Help, oh Lord! What is Thy purpose with us?" They pray in impotent terror and are full of some unspeakable fear, but they know not whence it came nor how it will end.
Now long drawn groans came up from the forest, each deeper than the last, striking as it were at the very roots of the building, collecting their forces for one mighty blow, one overwhelming shock. The house stood firm, but the beams groaned and the boards cracked under the pressure; the lime fell from the walls with a dull crack and the lead and tiles torn from the roof were flung with a rattle like hail on the stones of the court-yard and on the garden-beds, crushing and devastating everything. The fiery tongues from the clouds licked the spires with unsated greediness, discharging their electric tension with a deafening roar; and as if the waters of the abyss would fain extinguish the fires of heaven, they rushed in wild and foaming torrents from the mountains into the valleys, dragging the uprooted trees with them in their fall and dashing against the rampart-like wall as if they were Nature's battering-rams.
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us!" prayed the brethren who had gathered together; a little trembling flock in the middle of the dormitory. Suddenly one of the brethren grasped his neighbour's arm, "Look," he exclaimed, "up there in the eastern turret-window--do you see a light?" The monks could hardly look up, for at every instant the sky was all aflame and they hid their faces in fear. But it was true, they all saw it now--up in the window of the Lady Uta's room there was in fact a dim light. Was it a fire? had the lightning struck it? No, for it remained always the same. The brethren were seized with superstitious horror; was Lady Uta's ghost watching over her bequests--or was it Stiero the strong, now long since dead, and of whom it was said that he always walked when all the elements of nature were in revolt? The monks stood gazing helplessly, hardly daring to breathe, and half-blinded by the flashes. Should they call the Abbot? should they let him know? At this instant there was a blast so mighty that it seemed as if every joint and seam must part--as if the very earth must be blown out of its course, and they heard a crash on the pavement of the court-yard, while the windows flew open and the vessels and utensils danced on the shelves. It was the copper roof of the eastern tower that had fallen; the light in the turret window was extinguished. The monks fell on their knees, mechanically stammering out Paternosters. But what was that? Was it not a cry of pain from the tower? The brethren held their breath to listen, they convulsively clasped their rosaries in their cold hands and pressed them to their trembling hearts. There it was again--their blood ran cold, a long drawn cry of anguish was audible above the howling of the storm and the roaring of the waters.
At this moment the door was flung open and the Abbot rushed in, his lamp in his hand.
"Did you not hear--" he asked. "Was not that a cry from the eastern tower?"
"Did you hear it too?" whispered the monks, their voices choked with terror.
"Who can it be? There is no one there, the tower is locked up?"
"What a night!--hark--there, again!"
"But now it sounds from the forest."
"We cannot distinguish in this uproar of noise."
"Very likely it is some wild animal hurt by a falling tree."
"No, no, it is the spirits wailing in the air--a bad omen!"
"Heaven help us--what evil can it bode?"
"Lord, have mercy upon us!"
The Abbot meanwhile had glanced round the room.
"Where is Donatus?" he said, "his bed is empty."
Donatus--in the general panic no one had missed him.
"Donatus--my son, my child!" cried the Abbot, struck by a horrible suspicion. "Look above, below, every one search the whole house for him."
And foremost of them all, driven by some inexplicable dread, the Abbot rushed out into the storm, bareheaded, heedless of the pelting of stones and tiles, past the lofts that were threatening to fall, across to the eastern tower--the door was locked.
"The key! see for the key of the eastern tower," he ordered across the dark court-yard; no one had followed him but Correntian; the rest stood scared in the door-way--their lamps blown out.
Correntian hurried out to the gate-house. The key was gone! beyond a doubt Donatus had locked himself up in the tower.
"Hapless, struggling child!" cried the Abbot. "What demon is tormenting you that you must fly up there and tell your woes to the winds." And for the first time in his life he turned upon one of the brethren in anger; in the glare of the lightning that relieved the darkness and revealed them to each other, he fixed his eye piercingly on Correntian.
"I fear, I fear,"--he said, "that you must have a heavy burden on your conscience and that the cry of anguish of that poor tortured soul is gone up to God against you."
Correntian stood before him, dogged and invincible, "I only did my duty."
"Donatus!" cried the Abbot again. "Donatus, come down, open the door to me, your father--Donatus--my son."
No answer, all was still; it seemed as though the very storm had paused to listen; but in vain--nothing was moving.
"He cannot hear us call," said Correntian. "The storm roars too wildly round the detached tower; leave him, it is midnight and time for the service for the dead. The bell will soon ring and he will hear that. When the bell calls him he will come--I know him well." And he went back into the house.
The Abbot followed him with a deep sigh.
"My poor child! God help him to be victorious."
The storm had exhausted its fury and had swept away towards the heath at Mals. The pauses between the lightning and thunder were longer, the rain did not lash the windows so furiously, and the bell for the mass in memory of the Lady Uta tolled solemnly above the now distant tumult.
The monks assembled in the chapel in grave silence, for they were not yet free from the spell of the night's alarms, and went down into the crypt or founders' hall.
All were there but Eusebius and Donatus.
Eusebius was now often absent, excused by reason of his advanced age--but Donatus had never before been missing. The Abbot delayed beginning the solemnity, his anxiety increasing with every minute; the bell had long ceased to toll, still Donatus came not.
The brethren looked at each other in silence; none dared to increase the Abbot's trouble by uttering a word--but it was a mystery to every one. In vain did they strive to collect their thoughts for devotion. Each one secretly felt his heart beating wildly, he himself knew not why. Hark--what was that? A rustle--a sound of doubtful shuffling steps; slowly and hesitatingly they came down the stairs--slow, dragging steps like those of Fate--some one was feeling the way painfully along the wall--feeling for the latch of the door. Full of an unaccountable horror all the monks fixed their eyes on the door; it opened and a figure entered--pale and stark as death, like a walking corpse--there was a scream of horror, for it was Donatus, his face streaming with sweat and blood--eyeless.