A scream of anguish rang through the still convent court-yard from the eastern tower; it rang out to the clear spring sky and through the open turret-window, following the glorified infant soul that had taken its flight to Heaven up, up into the eternal blue; it startled the brooding swallow from the roof, and fearing some mortal evil she fluttered round her nest; it roused the grey monk in the western tower from the books and writings among which he sat day and night poring over his little desk and imbibing living food for his soul's roots from the dead parchment. He closed his book and rose. Meanwhile someone was already knocking at his door. For father Eusebius was the sick nurse of the whole convent; whenever any one was ill in the Abbey or in the neighbourhood he was sent for.
"Come quickly, brother Eusebius," cried the messenger. "The nurse's baby has died suddenly."
Brother Eusebius was not in the least surprised, he had foreseen it; since that night of terror three days ago the little girl had been ill and had defied his utmost skill. Some of the brethren it is true were of opinion that the child was possessed by the devil, because the mother had been snatched from her wicked pleasures, and that it ought to be exorcised; but the wise Eusebius knew better--he knew that the feeble infant had drunk its death at its mother's breast.
He went up to the little room which was lighted up by the brightest sunshine; the poor woman lay stretched over her child's body, her wild sobs betraying the agony which was rending her heart. The other child lay smiling in his cradle and playing with a wreath of blooming cowslips[1]that his uncle Conrad of Ramüss had brought up from the valley where he had been tending a sick man. The poor little corpse had its eyes still open and they were fixed on the unconscious boy as if she had something to say to him which her little silent lips could not utter. But the mother understood--at least she thought she understood--and she gave that look a cruel and terrible meaning; for her it had no other interpretation than this: "You have killed me."
Eusebius silently laid one hand on the mother's head and the other on the child's, and with a practised touch he closed the dead, fixed eyes. The sobbing mother was pressing her aching head against the cold little breast as if to break through the icy crust laid over it by death, but he raised her head with a firm hand, and without a word pointed to the open window. At that moment a white dove flew through the clear ether, shining like silver in the sunshine--rising higher, growing smaller, as it soared on rapturous wing through immeasurable space; soon seen no more but as a fluttering speck, higher and still higher--till lost in the blue distance. That was the soul of the dead child--so the mother believed--nay knew for certain. She sank on her knees and with folded hands worshipped the miracle that had been accomplished before her mortal eyes. And so once more the wise old man had been able to triumph over death and misery in that hapless soul by an alliance with Nature which he alone understood--Nature who would utter her divine wisdom to none but him.
But the measure was not yet full.
Out on the moor the lonely outcast husband was rocking in his canoe by the shore of the lake; his nets lay idle at the bottom of the boat and he sat sunk in sullen brooding; it was growing dusk, the lake bubbled and foamed; there was dumb rebellion in its depths--as in the depths of the exile's soul. Cold gusts dashed frothy, splashing waves on to the banks which were as bare--up at this height--as if it still were winter, and which were so sodden with the melting snows that they could absorb no more of the superfluous moisture; the dry scrub that grew about the place sighed and rustled softly as the wind swept over it. The fisherman started from his dreaming, unmoored his bark and pushed away from the shore; but hardly had he got a yard from the bank when he heard a voice calling. He stopped and listened; it was a messenger from the monastery to tell him that that morning his little daughter had died.
The man let go his oar and hid his face in his hands sobbing aloud like a child.
The convent servant called out to him compassionately to "come to shore, to compose himself; that the holy fathers had desired him to promise the afflicted man all kindness, and good wages for the future--" the stricken man rose up in the rage of despair.
"Spare your words," he shouted across the roaring of the waves as they tossed round the frail canoe. "Take yourself off with your hypocritical convent face or I will choke your false throat with your own lying promises. Why should I believe you--how have you kept your word to me? You have stolen my wife and murdered my child. I curse you--I curse the day when you enticed my wife and child within your dismal walls, I curse the day when that boy was born who is the cause of all the mischief. Be advised while still it is time--kill the child before he does any farther harm--an evil star guides him and he will bring ruin on all who go near him. And now get you gone if you value your life."
The convent servant crossed himself in horror and hastened to obey the warning; he was frightened at the infuriated man, standing up in his bark with his fist clenched, with his tangled hair and flaming eyes like a "Salwang," one of those most fearful giants, before whom not mortals only, but even the "phantom maidens" fly.
And as soon as the messenger had disappeared the unhappy man threw himself on his face again and abandoned himself to his sorrow. The canoe drove over the waves--rudderless as the boatman's soul. He did not heed the spring-storm that blew in deeper and deeper gusts across the lake, nor the waves that ran higher and higher as though Nature were dreaming uneasily in her sleep--till suddenly a swift current caught the boat and carried it on with increasing rapidity down the lake. The man started up, and his aroused consciousness made him clutch sharply at the oar, for he perceived with horror through the darkness that he was driving towards the spot where the Etsch[2]rushes out of the lake with a considerable fall. But alas! the oar was gone--it had slipped away, escaping him in his anguish without his being aware of it; the loop of straw which had served to fasten it was hanging broken to the hook. For an instant he was stunned, then he gave an involuntary shout for help--then came the knowledge of the danger, the certainty that he was lost. He went through a brief struggle of vigorous healthy life against the idea of destruction--a short pang of terror of death--and then came the calmness of despair, and a still heroism that none could see but God! The lost man sat with his arms folded in the boat, driven down the stream beyond all hope of rescue, with one last prayer on his lips--a loving prayer for the wife he was leaving behind. Far away on the shore he sees the lights of the brethren of St. Valentine--they call to him--signal to him--the boat rushes on, in headlong haste, to its fate. There--there are the falls--a thundering roar--the canoe tips up on end--then it shoots over head foremost, turning over twice in its fall, till it lies crushed and smashed among the stones in the bed of the cataract. It is all over--the swollen spring-flood of the Etsch carries a mangled corpse and dancing fragments down into the valley on its sportive and roaring waters.
"Now indeed, poor woman--you have lost all!"
Father Eusebius was sitting in the nurse's little room, which during the last three days had been to her a cell of torment; he held the unconscious woman's head between his hands and rubbed her forehead and temples with strong spirit of lavender; but her mind was wandering far away in the twilight of oblivion and must return to a consciousness of nothing but horror--torment and to suffering. Her hands moved with a feeble gesture to push him away, her dumb lips parted as though she would say, "Do not be cruel--do not wake me--I am at peace--leave me, leave me."
But though his heart seemed to stand still for pity, he must call her back to life.
At last she was roused; she looked round enquiringly, for all her world was in ruins and she knew not whom she could turn or cling to. Before her on the floor lay her dead husband's clothes--there stood the cradle out of which they had carried away her baby only yesterday to the charnel-house--what was left her in the world? There still was one! Father Eusebius took the living baby from the bed and brought it to her. "It is a stranger's child," he said. "But it is yours too!" and the bleeding heart-strings, torn up by the roots, clung to the strange child as if he were her own--the poor beggared soul accepted it as the last alms of love bestowed upon her by the Creator; for she was humbled in her misfortune, she did not strive, she did not contend, nor did she bear any malice to the child, for all that it had unconsciously been guilty of. "The child is yours," spoke comfort to her heart, and she believed it as father Eusebius himself did when he spoke the words.
"What is yours? Who within these walls may venture to boast that anything is his own?" said Correntian's stern voice at the door.
"Oh! that man!" shrieked the terrified woman and she fled with the child into the remotest corner of the room from the sinister monk who now came in.
"I spoke of the child--to comfort the poor soul, and if you are a man you will leave her that comfort," said brother Eusebius.
"In this house nothing is ours--but suffering and the hope of redemption," the dark man went on pitilessly. "Know that, woman; and remember it at every hour--The venerable fathers have sent me to tell you that you must now wean the child, that the shock of the last few days may do him no harm."
A flood of tears burst from the nurse's large and innocent eyes as she heard this, and she asked with white lips,
"Must I go away then?"
"No, not so long as the child is still little and needs a woman's care. Now, you know the fathers' determination--act accordingly."
And without vouchsafing her a glance he quitted the room.
Calm, clear and gentle, like the moon in the high heaven when the sun has set, father Eusebius stood before the poor woman whose sun of life had set, and in half-inarticulate words she made her lament to him, telling him her sorrow; to him she dared to weep out all the unutterable anguish that would have driven her mad if she had had to bear it alone.
Day after day passed silently away in the lonely turret-room; in a few weeks the fresh handsome woman had grown pale, thin and old--no longer a scandal to the chaste eyes of the brethren. Not a word, not a smile ever came to her lips--she lived only for the child that throve joyously on her crushed affections.
Every day the little one grew stronger and more blooming; a child as sweet and winning as if angels came down from Heaven from time to time to play with him. He was like a ray of sunshine in the gloomy convent and in the closed hearts of the brethren. He could entice a smile from the sternest lips--hardly any one could resist giving him a flower in passing, throwing him a spray, or bringing him some tempting fruit from any more distant walk--a bunch of wood strawberries, an empty bird's-nest, a sparkling pebble--whatever came to hand. "Our little brother," they called him, and the words were repeated here and there in the early morning, when the nurse would sit with the boy in the little cloister garden for him to play on the soft grass-plot while she went on silently with her work, for the little one had begun to run about quite prettily and she could leave him to himself for hours. But indeed he never remained alone; hardly was he down in the garden when all the younger monks gathered round him like bees round a newly opened flower. And they played with him like children and made him all sorts of toys; chains of bird-cherries and little parchment wind-mills and ships--downright waste of time the older brethren called it. The rigid old brother carpenter carved him out little sheep and cows and a little manger with a baby Christ in it. Brother Engelbert, the painter, painted him all sorts of lovely pictures in the brightest colours--the whale swallowing Jonas and Saint Christopher carrying the infant Christ through the water; and was delighted with the child's shouts of joy when he showed some comprehension of one and the other. Brother Candidus, the precentor, cut him out sweetly tuned pipes and was never tired of admiring the boy's good ear.
Thus each did what he could for the "little brother." The hour of recreation was their play-time with the boy and the older men would look on smiling and observe with satisfaction how such innocent and childish amusements could please the younger brethren.
The child grew up in bliss--as if in Paradise. Loved by all, affectionately taught by all, he developed rapidly in body and mind. One above all others bore him in his heart and cared for him with his hands--to one above all others he clung with increasing devotion; this was Conrad of Ramüss, his uncle. However deep the child might be in some new game, however close the circle of monks around him, when he heard Conrad's voice he flung everything aside, got up on his tottering little feet, and trotted jubilant to meet him. It was a striking picture when the tall, handsome man stooped down to lift the boy; when the fat baby arms were clasped round the proud neck with its golden curls and the small round cheeks were pressed caressingly against that noble, spiritual face.
"My sweet angel, the flower on my cross!" he would often say to him, and the child would listen almost devoutly and look before him vaguely with his large brown eyes, as though he already could know the significance of the Cross which stood in the midst of the convent garden to the honour of the Most High.
He would sit for hours in the quiet little garden with the child on his knee and his breviary in his hand; so long as he felt the little heart beating against his own he was content. Now and then it struck his conscience that perhaps he clung too closely to the child as an earthly treasure; and then he would raise his eyes imploringly to Heaven, "Forgive me for loving him--I am bringing him up for Thee--my God." And as the child grew bigger and learned to speak, it was Conrad who with inexhaustible patience taught him his first little prayer; to fold his baby hands and kiss the wooden Christ in the garden when he lifted him up in his strong arms. The little one knew every wound as a cruel torment and would lisp out, "Holy! holy!" while he pressed his rosy lips to the blood-stained wooden hands and feet. But he who inflicted these torments on the Redeemer, to the child's fancy was none other than Correntian; the brethren might do what they would, they could never get it out of the child's head that "the cruel man" had nailed the Saviour to the cross.
"The brat has more wit than all of us put together," said Wyso when he heard it. "If Christ were to come again Correntian would be the first to crucify him."
From that time Correntian hated him if possible more than before, and the child was so much afraid of him that he fled from him crying when by any chance he approached him. Never had he favoured the child with a single word but one of rebuke, nor a look but one of reproach. The merriment of the brethren was in his eyes an outrage and a crime against the rule of Saint Benedict which did not allow of speech "with gesticulations, nor with showing of the teeth, nor with laughter and outcry."
But the others who set the spirit above the letter, and who better understood the rule of Saint Benedict, did not care, but loved the child all the more. Correntian was like a seceder from the rest of the brethren, and the unacknowledged breach between them grew daily more impossible to heal. Here again it was the child that was guilty. "The seed of hell that I pointed out is beginning to germinate," said the implacable man.
Three summers had passed over little Donatus and the autumn wind was once more blowing over the stubble-fields though the midday sun still blazed with much power. The nurse was sitting with the boy in an arbour of blossomless juniper; the brethren were busy in the house with their prayers and duties. She was quite alone; as often as the autumn winds blew, the old wounds broke out again in the saddened heart and bled anew; it was now near the season when, four years ago, she had first left her husband and her lowly home, which was now empty and ruined. "You--you took everything from me--and yet I cannot help loving you, you child of sorrow," said she to the boy, who was playing at her feet at a burial, and was just then placing a cross he had made of two little sticks on the top of a mound he had thrown up. It was a delightful occupation and the child was eager at his play; he decked the grave with red bird-cherries as he had seen done in the grave-yard when one of the brethren took him there; then he swung his little clay mug over it by a string for a censer and sang an edifying litany in his baby way as he had heard the brethren do, and he was so absorbed in his pretty play that he screamed and struggled when his nurse suddenly caught hold of him and took him up. But he was easily pacified and, well-pleased with his foster-mother's caresses, he clung closely to that faithful breast. It was long since she had forgotten the prohibition to kiss him. She clasped him again and again with melancholy fervour and pressed a thousand kisses on his sweet baby-lips.
At this moment, as if it had sprung from the earth, a dark shadow stood between her and the sun, which threw a golden light on the grass-plot in front of the arbour. She looked up startled--again it was Correntian who stood before her. And as if that most sacred feeling, a mother's love, were a sin, she blushed and set the child down on the ground. She was suddenly conscious that she ought not to kiss him--a look of loathing from the monk told her all and she trembled before him. But he only shook his head and said,
"This must have an end. Stay here!" he added in a tone of rough command and quitted her with a rapid step.
The woman sat still as if spell-bound and dared not move from the spot. What misery would he bring upon her now? All at once it had grown cloudy and chill, and yet the sun was shining as before; the grass, the trees--though still green, the sky--though still blue--everything was all at once autumnal and sere as if metamorphosed by a touch. And the child looked to her so strange, so distant, so unattainable, and yet she need only put out her arms to clasp him.
So she waited with folded hands, motionless.
At last she heard returning steps over the path; it was the Abbot and a few of the elder brethren. The Abbot hurried up with unwonted haste.
"You are an incorrigible woman," he scolded out. "We have shown more than due pity for you, we have kept you here longer than was fit although the boy has long since ceased to need you; there was no way left for you to sin--so we thought--and now I hear that even this child is not sacred to you! Why, have I not forbidden you to kiss the boy? 'under heavy penalty,' I said; and you--you despise our orders, you compel the child to submit to your caresses although he struggles with vague misgiving, and you teach his innocent mouth, which is consecrated to God's service, to kiss a woman's lips; you outrage the sight of the brethren who betake themselves to the garden for devout contemplation? It must come to an end, brother Correntian is right. There," he added, drawing a little bag full of gold coins out of his frock, and laying it in her hand, "there is your honest pay. I think you will be satisfied with us, it is a donation worthy of a prince. You may buy yourself a farm and land with it down there near Nauders or wherever you will, but take yourself off out of the sacred precincts of our cloister, for ever."
The nurse made no answer, she stood there pale and dumb; tears dimmed her eyes as if she had been plunged into a lake, and saw everything through water. Her clenched hands trembled so that she had let the purse fall, the wretched price of her life's ruined happiness. Now the last treasure was taken from her, the only thing left--the child to whom she had sacrificed all; this too! "Within these walls nothing is our own but suffering," Correntian had said, she remembered that.
"Take the child with you at once," said the Abbot, and Correntian's bony fingers grasped the child; but the boy cried so heart-rendingly, and clung with such deadly terror to his foster-mother that he had to be torn away from her, and his screams brought out the younger brethren. The nurse leaned helplessly against the pillar of the arbour, and a deep groan broke from her. The younger monks, looking on, were filled with blind fury; their hatred for Correntian, which had been growing for many years, could be no longer contained; they forgot all discipline and obedience, all the rules of their order. They crowded round Correntian like a pack of hounds.
"Leave the child alone, you blood-hound, you spy, who can never leave any thing in peace."
"For shame, reverend Abbot, for listening to him, the wolf."
Thus shouted the angry mob who would listen to no farther commands; it was open revolt. The Abbot and the elder brethren ran about in confusion, not knowing what to do, when above the tumult they heard the voice which had so often restored peace and calm; father Eusebius had just come down from his tower-chamber, and with a rapid glance had taken in the state of affairs.
"You are forgetting your obedience, my brethren. We could not keep the woman here for ever; so it is my opinion that Conrad of Ramüss should take the child into his cell, he loves it, and it clings to him."
"Yes, yes, let Conrad of Ramüss take him," they cried with one voice, and brother Conrad was fetched out from the chapel.
With a glance of infinite pity at the poor trembling woman he took the child in his arms. "Be easy, I will take good care of him for you," he said kindly, and she gratefully kissed the hem of his robe. She took one last long look at the child, the beloved boy that she had nursed so faithfully in those arms which might never clasp him again. She dared not give him any parting kiss, his little hands might never touch her more. The tall monk carried him away high above the crowd of brethren, as if he were borne along on a dark stream; now, now the doors close upon him--it is over!
The woman sat alone under the withered arbour; it was evening, the dew was falling, the wind rustled in the dry branches, and warned her that it was time to make up her bundle, and to find her way--out into the world where all was dead or strange to her. Whither should she go? She knew not, she must wander about alone and helpless so long as her feet would carry her, till she dropped and lay down somewhere or other. She pulled herself up, for so it must be, but she must go upstairs into the empty room whence they had taken the child, just to fetch a few wretched garments. No, she could not do it.
She stole away, just as she stood, her knees bending under her, taking only one thing with her: the little cross with which the child had been playing at his mimic grave-yard. She pressed it to her lips while she shed hot tears. Thus she glided like a criminal through the mist and darkness, out of the little gate where she had so often watched for her husband. But now no loving arm was waiting to clasp her; the Prior called out a compassionate farewell; that was all. One more glance up at the turret-window, and then she went down into the misty valley--a lonely beggar.
Up in the convent a great conclave was held by the elders in judgment on the younger brethren and their criminal outbreak against all discipline. Father Eusebius would willingly have hurried off after the poor forsaken woman, but his duty to his Order kept him here.
"It has all happened just as I said and prophesied," said Correntian. "All the mischief comes of the child. It is the child of a curse, and it will bring the curse under our roof."
Then Eusebius rose, his voice sounded sharp and stern as it never had before, and his eyes flashed round upon the assembly with an eagle-like glance.
"I will tell you," said he, "the cause of the curse that clings to the child. All the conditions of its life are unnatural. Its father's rage was unnatural that made the child an outcast before it was born; your demands on the nurse were unnatural, and the husband, wife, and child have come to ruin in consequence; and the child's life here in the convent is unnatural. That is the seed of hell of which you spoke, Correntian, which you have cherished, and which you will reap--the revenge of outraged nature."
Joy, joy in all the fields! for it is harvest-time. In all the fields up hill and down dale; down in the valley and up on the heights they are cutting the last swathes, the last Rodnerinnenlocken are sounding--so they call the old traditional cry with which the hay-maker calls upon the blessed phantom-maidens to come and help him. He strikes three times on his scythe with his whet-stone, so that it rings over hill and valley; the phantom-maidens hear it, and hasten down from their cliffs to help the mowers, so that they may get in the harvest in dry weather. For they are kind-hearted and well-disposed to the peasant who contentedly tills his field, and many old folks are still living who have seen with their own eyes that they were not too proud to work in peasant's dress, helping those who were industrious. But since a rude lad once seized upon one of the "good women," and kissed her by force, they no longer show themselves to mortal eyes; only their kind handiwork can be traced. The more industrious a man is, the more they help him, for they never come to any but the industrious; the idle call on them in vain. But this year there must have been more of them than ever, for it is a splendid harvest, and has been got in quicker than usual. Singing and shouting resound on all the meadows, and the long lines of hay-waggons with their intractable teams of spanned oxen seem endless. Children are romping among the odorous hay-cocks in the meadows, or lie on the top of the soft piled up heaps stretching their weary limbs luxuriously; lads and lasses together teazing and joking each other in exuberant merriment.
Up at the window of the eastern tower of Marienberg a pair of large melancholy eyes were gazing longingly down on this glorious, smiling scene. A pair of wonderful eyes they were; deep, dark, and yet full of light as though glowing with some inward fire, so that even the white seemed to take a ruddy tint, like an opal held against the light. They gazed down from the tower with a fixed regard, drinking in all the splendour in one long look.
The gay, social doings of men--the silent, all-powerful day-star that was riding at its noon-tide height and shedding its rays over all the wide landscape, so that every roof and turret of the thirteen hamlets that lay strewn around were distinctly visible up to the very edge of the gleaming snow-fields and glaciers, which were the only limits set to the roving eye--the wide verdant plain, like a garden with softly swelling hills and tufted woods, and traversed by the silvery streak of the murmuring Etsch--all this was mirrored in those hungry, dreamy, far-gazing eyes. They followed the course of the wild, swift rivulet that tosses itself so impatiently over rapids and falls as it leaves the lonely mountain-tarn on the moor, rushing on to the all-engulfing sea. And those eyes sent forth a message of enquiry up to the blue sky, down to the smiling plain, beyond the majestic heads of the great Ortler-chain--a dumb, burning question.
But no answer came back to him; it vanished, wafted away by the winds, like broken gossamer-threads.
The eyes, the anxiously enquiring eyes, belonged to a youth so nobly formed, so full of graciousness, that it seemed as if nature must have formed him for a world of perpetual Sundays, and not for a world of weariness, labour and duty--those grim destroyers of the beautiful.
"Oh! sweet child of humanity; here you sit imprisoned and bemoaning your living death between cloister walls and among pale disfigured faces. Forgive me, O, God! if it is a sin to regret that all that is beautiful should be rejected by pitiless asceticism in these rough times--that it must wander through the world misunderstood and unprized, and either perish like flowers on a cross or sink in the pool of perdition."
Father Eusebius was standing behind the young man's chair and his eyes rested sadly and thoughtfully on the young head, with its thick crown of dark curls that waved rebelliously round the prescribed tonsure. Eusebius had grown old and feeble, he was now ninety-three years old. His hair was like snow, and his body frail and bent, but his spirit was perennially young and his glance had the same power as of old. The youth turned his head. "What, Father Eusebius," said he in surprise. "Are you there? I did not hear you come in. What has brought your weary feet up here?"
"I knew that you would be up here and dreaming again."
"Are you vexed with me?" asked the boy, and a pleading smile lighted up his face as sweetly as when a crystal pool reflects the sunshine.
"Who could be vexed with you?" said Eusebius, and his old eyes lingered with undisguised delight on the beautiful face of the boy, "I only fear lest the brethren should take it ill in you if you keep apart in the recreation-hour."
"Ah, reverend brother," answered the youth, "you cannot know how happy I am up here; I can see out into the wide world, far over hill and valley! This was my first home, here stood my cradle, here a kind voice sang me to sleep and in the little nest up there on the roof I first heard the twittering of birds. I cannot tell you how content I am here. I feel as if when my time comes I must die here and fly straight out of that window into eternity after my little foster-sister--as if there could be no other path-way to Heaven."
Eusebius laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"I do understand you, my son. It would be well for you if so it could be and you need only fly away to reach eternal bliss! But a long and weary and thorny path lies before you, a path which you must tread with bleeding feet; and many a heavy cross awaits you that you must bear on aching shoulders ere you may rest in God!"
"Oh! brother--why may I not die at once? Why may I not depart at once and be with the Father, for whom my soul pants?"
"Because we must live--live and work, my son; work for our neighbour and for future generations. Thus only can humanity ripen into perfection; each must do his duty in his own way by word and by example and none may escape his task."
"Why must we first be men if we proceed from God and are his children?" asked the boy with a sigh.
"We do not proceed from God--we shall only go to God! Of dust were we born and out of dust we shall be raised and purified by the Spirit--to the Spirit."
The lad rested his head upon his hand and looked out again. "By the Spirit, to the Spirit--yes--yes--we must cast off this flesh with all its longings and weakness and yet--Oh! Eusebius, it is so hard! It would be so much easier to throw off this whole miserable body at once and die once for all than slowly to crush this throbbing, longing heart. Eusebius, a feeling comes over me as if I must fling my arms wide open and embrace the desert air--as if I must throw myself down on the grass and rest my head on the lap of earth--as if somewhere--in the earth itself or in the warm summer-air--a heart must be beating towards mine on which I might fling myself and weep out all my pain. Ah! Eusebius, it is true you all love me--and I love you; and I love God too and my Holy Mother Mary above all--and still it is not enough and my soul still thirsts for some love--for something--that shall be my own--wholly and solely mine. 'It is not good for man to be alone,' was said by the Lord himself--and I am alone--so utterly, absolutely alone."
And the youth raised his glowing eyes with such fervent entreaty to Eusebius that it cut the old man to the heart. Then he passionately grasped Eusebius' hand.
"Eusebius," he said, "you are wiser than they all. Tell me why must it be so? Why must we love nothing but God? Why is that a sin for us which is permitted to all the rest of mankind?"
Eusebius was startled by this unexpected question. He himself had once upon a time purchased his salvation with his very heart's blood and the wounds had healed. But would that which had cured him work a cure in another? Would the idea that rules the world damp this fire also? Eusebius looked thoughtfully before him and there was a pause as if he were seeking the right words; then he said,
"The great mass of people are struggling upwards by degrees--working, toiling, producing--step by step to the throne of God; but the steps are centuries and it is only after long centuries that the goal is ever visible to them. But there are solitary souls that feel a more powerful impulse towards Heaven than others do and that can separate themselves from the common herd and by great acts of self-denial attain to that perfection, for which centuries are needed by mankind as a whole. Such a soul can tread the direct road to God;--but he must walk alone--for he is shut out from all community with nature as soon as he sets forth upon that road. He no longer belongs to the toiling, producing mass, seething with perpetual reproduction of itself from itself--his life must be one long death. It demands the noblest heroism, the highest effort; for one single glance backwards--one false step on his lonely way to death; and omnipotent nature clutches him again and drags the lost soul back among her blindly-working wheels. But in the last judgment God will judge those presumptuous ones who undertook that which they could not carry through, more hardly than all the others, and will say, 'Why wouldst thou fain be better and greater than these, if thou hadst not the strength to achieve it?' Therefore, my son, we live apart from the world behind these sheltering cloister-walls, that nothing may tempt us from the path of holiness which we have chosen."
Eusebius paused and watched Donatus, who was leaning against the window and breathing hard.
"Eusebius!" he exclaimed, fervently grasping the old man's hand, "God will be merciful and give me strength to carry through that which I have begun--will he not?"
"Who can tell? What we ourselves undertake we ourselves must carry out. Therefore prove your heart, my son, before you swear the great irrevocable vow; you yourself wished to be a priest--you have obtained your wish, in a few days you will be consecrated to God's service. But if in your heart you bear such earthly longings will you be strong enough for such a sacred calling? If not--renounce it rather than some day break a double vow and so be doubly sinful. Better, better that you should fly away into the wide world than that you should be false to your own and to our plighted truth, and so fall lower in the eyes of God than those who never purposed to be more than men among men."
"I fly! I not be a priest!" cried the youth vehemently. "Nay, nay, my brother. You only wish to try me--you cannot be in earnest. If I said anything to make you doubt my truth, forgive me. Never, never has such a thought crossed my mind. And what should I do out in the world? If you drive a bird that was hatched in captivity out of doors it will starve in the midst of plenty--and so it would be with me. Only sometimes I suddenly feel as if the convent were too narrow for me, as if you ought not to keep me here like a prisoner! Look out there--is not that glorious! Must I not long to be out there in the blue distance? Must not the plain below tempt me down there, down to the delicious verdure which affords nourishment and refreshment to all? Must not those solitary heights tempt me up to the everlasting snow, so high, so near to Heaven? Or over there, near the bed of the silver stream, out on the heath where I was born? Is not God everywhere--over there as well as here? And is it not He whom I would seek down in the valley or up among the frozen glaciers? You--all of you--go in and out; you strengthen and refresh your souls in wood and field, why may I only never quit these walls?--why must I, so long as I live, be rooted like a dumb motionless plant within the narrow limits of the little convent garden?"
"My son, I have long expected you to question me thus. I will take upon myself to tell you the reasons why the fathers shelter you so anxiously--against my advice--for so far as I am concerned you should not be a monk nor take the vows of priesthood. I have read many books, old heathen chronicles and histories as well as Christian ones, and I have always found that human wit and human cunning must fail when anything was fore-ordained, and that what must be must. And if it must be, you will be torn from us even if we keep you within seven-fold walls. You must know then that a curse of interdicted love rests upon you; that is why your dying mother dedicated you to the cloister, and the reason of their keeping you so strictly, in order that the last will of the dead may be faithfully carried out. The fathers dread lest every step beyond these walls should entail the accomplishment of the curse; nay, Correntian even proposed that you should be blinded when you came to us as a new-born infant, to secure you for ever from all temptation."
"Dreadful man!" said the lad with a shudder. "But--one thing more--solve, I beg of you, the mystery of my birth. Why was I born out on the heath, who was my mother, and what crime had she committed that my father should cast her out?"
"We all took a solemn oath to our Abbot Conrad--the Abbot at that time--never to breathe the names of your parents either to you or to any one else, so that every tie between you and the world might be broken. Your mother died as a saint, and it was her wish that you too should live and die in an equally saintly manner. You are the child of the church; ask after no other parents. This was the answer we were to give you when you should ask, and so I answer you now, as is my duty."
"Oh! now I understand it all!" said Donatus, his voice trembling with deep agitation. "Woe is me! a curse rested on my innocent head before I saw the light! Aye, it is true; I was the death of the mother that bore me, I made the foster-mother that reared me miserable; she lost her husband and child for my sake. I was born to misfortune, and misfortune will pursue me wherever I go. Yes, you are right, there is no road for me but that to God, not a hope but Heaven! and I will keep three-fold watch over myself now that I know this! I will quell my rebellious heart even if it must break. I will not dream up here any more; no more shall the soft breath of the morning-breeze caress me, no more will I inhale the aromatic fragrance of the limes beneath this window nor let my gaze wander round the smiling distance--all these things rouse my longing! And perish the wishes even which may tempt me away from the step of the Altar to which I am dedicated! I am yours henceforth body and soul, and the world shall never more rob you of a single thought of my mind!"
"God grant it may be so!" said Eusebius, and his eyes rested sadly on the transfigured countenance of his young companion. Did he shake his head? no, he was only shaking off a startled moth. And Donatus rose.
"Let us go down," he said, "and leave this ensnaring spot which too much befools my senses! For I feel I had said things that I ought not to have said, and that it was not God who lent me such words."
So saying he closed the little window with its panes, obscured by dust and its worm-eaten frame. At this moment a cheery blast from a horn rang in the distance. "Oh look!" cried Donatus, "a procession of riders is coming up the mountain!"
Eusebius went to the window.
"It is true," said he, "a riding party--they are coming here; we must hurry down to announce them to the Abbot; come."
It was eleven o'clock, the hour when the brethren walked in the garden for recreation. Abbot Conrad of Ramüss, for it was he who now wore the mitre, was just then walking under a shady alley of trees and discussing with one of the brethren the preparations for ordaining Donatus a priest; for his favourite's festival must be kept with all the pomp of which the rules of the order allowed. Noonday silence lay on the peaceful little garden. The apricots and pears on the walls swelled their ruddy cheeks under the hot rays of a July sun and the brethren rested at their ease, stretched out in the shade of quiet arbours and trees. The pigeons cooed on the roof, and at the foot of the Crucifix, where the sun shone hottest, lay the lazy old convent cat, her green eyes sleepily closed.
Suddenly a wild noise was heard at the gate, the neighing of horses and barking of dogs, blasts on the horn and confused shouting; the brethren sprang, up in alarm. Donatus and Eusebius hurried up. "For God's sake, venerable Abbot--there is a splendid riding party at the gate, desiring to be admitted," they called out, "What shall we do?"
"What we cannot avoid doing--give them what they require."
"Oh, dear!" lamented fat old Wyso, who had been brought out by the alarm and who could hardly walk for old age and swelled feet. "Oh, dear! they will eat us up like the Egyptian locusts--do not let them in--or ask first who they are. We are not bound to harbour any one but the lords of the soil and they have already left us poor."
"Good brother Wyso," said the Abbot smiling, "if it pleased the Lord to let a swarm of locusts fall upon us, should we not be obliged to submit? so submit to these and act cordially with us in showing hospitality."
Thus speaking they had reached the gate and the Abbot himself opened it and met the impatient troop with a dignified demeanour.
High above him on horseback sat a number of nobles with a crowd of followers. The gay robes of silk and velvet, trimmed with costly furs, shone splendidly in the sun. Men and beasts were bathed in sweat from their hot ride up the steep hill.
"Deo gratias, noble gentlemen," said the Abbot. "If you are satisfied to accept what a poor, out-of-the-world mountain-convent has to offer, step in and be welcome in Christ's name."
"Come in, as many as there is room for," said the foremost horseman with a laugh, urging his prancing horse through the narrow doorway. "God save you, my lord Abbot, I do not think you good folks here starve?" he added with a merry glance at Wyso, who was trying to keep his gouty feet in safety out of the way of the crowd of horses.
The knight guided his horse under a shed, in order to alight in the shade; as many of the others followed as could come in; the silent convent yard was like a bustling camp, the mass of horses and men were pressed so closely together in crowded confusion. The horses kicked out in every direction, not liking such close quarters; the hindermost forcing their way in, the foremost unable to go any farther in the narrow space. There was pushing and screaming, prancing and stamping. Wyso escaped into the house, not without abusing the visitors, and even the other monks were frightened and startled out of their quiet life by the rough incursion of this high-handed party.
"Oh--locusts! locusts! you would be a lovely sight compared to these monsters!" Wyso lamented as he looked out of window.
At last all the horses were put up, some in the cattle stalls and some tied up in a row all round the walls, nay some--and this cut the brethren to the heart--some to the beautiful promising fruit trellises--the toil and care of many years all undone in an instant! And the brethren looked with consternation as they saw great horses' mouths with rolling tongues and sniffing nostrils poking about in the trees and eating what they took a fancy to, pending the arrival of better fare.
"What is to be done?" said the Abbot in a low voice to the brethren, "We must submit! And this is a friendly incursion--think what it would be if it were a hostile invasion--God preserve us!"
Meanwhile the marauding visitors had without farther ado overrun the hay lofts and brought down fodder for their horses, and to facilitate the beasts' enjoyment of it they stuffed it between the bars of the fruit trellises, for there were no mangers in the convent. The pack of dogs let loose in the little garden tore with wild howls across the flower beds in chase of the convent cat, who had little expected such visitors.
"Now, my lord Abbot," said the foremost of the riders good-humouredly enough, but in a tone of rough command. "Where are your cellarers? They should have appeared long ago to present us with a bowl of wine! True hospitality does not delay till the rider has his foot out of the stirrup."
"You shall be served at once, my lords!" said the Abbot. "You must take the will for the deed, for we are inexperienced and unaccustomed to receiving so many guests."
"But if I am well-informed you have occasionally received your seignior, the Count of Matsch--or Amatia, as they prefer to call it, with all his following?"
"We are the vassals of the Count of Matsch; it is an old right of our liege lords to visit us once a year," answered the Abbot.
"Then you cannot refuse to your sovereign prince what you grant to your liege," said the knight. "I am Meinhard the Second of Görtz and Tyrol and the Duchess is following me immediately."
The Abbot bowed to the very ground in pleasure and respect, "Happy is the day that procures us the honour of seeing your gracious countenance! Hail to Duke Meinhard!"
"Hail to Duke Meinhard! our powerful protector. Hail!" rang from all lips, and even Wyso came hobbling out again, panting and perspiring, and made his way with unwonted courage among the horses to testify his respect for the powerful Duke.
"Now the ducal horses might be welcome to eat all the apricots and pears, and the dogs to trample all the vegetables and flowers--this is quite another matter!"
"Make way--make way for the Duchess and her suite!" was now the cry of the marshal at the gate, and all made way for the litters of the Duchess and her ladies.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Women in the cloister! And we cannot keep them out, for our wise rule allows princesses to enter!" lamented Wyso slily and winking with secret delight at Correntian, who was standing near him. "What do you say to such doings, Correntian?"
The Duke and the Abbot went to meet the procession and receive the noble lady. Foremost of all on a quiet horse rode the marshal, then followed the panting and sweating beasts that bore the Duchess' litter, each walking between two poles which hung from their backs from strong girths; one went in front and the other behind, each guided by a driver with a large cracking whip. Between them swung the tall palanquin with light rustling curtains of red silk, blown about by the hot south-wind, and inside it, wearily stretched out on soft crimson cushions embroidered with gold, lay a pale, delicate woman, closely veiled and so simply dressed that it was visible at the first glance that her mind was not set on the royal splendour with which her proud husband loved to surround her. But the ladies of her suite looked all the more haughty as they followed her on horseback. They rode behind the litter between the rows of monks, laughing and chattering, swaying their slender bodies carelessly on their broad-backed palfreys and looking curiously at the shorn heads around them, from under their broad hats, adorned with peacock feathers. Suddenly one of them drew her embroidered rein and whispered to her neighbour, "Look, there is a handsome one!" And all eyes followed hers to where Donatus was standing with downcast lids, grave and silent.
"Forwards!" cried the marshal, for a troop of riders were still behind as an escort for the ladies.
The Abbot had taken the leading-rein of the foremost horse in the litter and guided it with his own hand through the court to the inner gateway; here he paused and went up to the lady, "May it please you, noble lady," he said, "to alight and to put up with the accommodation of our humble roof."
At a sign from the marshal the squires and pages sprang forward. In an instant the horses were unharnessed, the litter let down on to the ground, the ladies lifted from their horses and litter and horses all led on one side. The Duchess, a lady of middle age and apparently afflicted by severe illness, bowed her head humbly before the Abbot. "Give me your blessing, reverend Father," she said softly.
The Abbot blessed her and led her with her ladies into the cool refectory.
"Will you condescend to rest and cool yourself here for a time, noble Lady?" he said, "while I see to providing some farther refreshment."
He conducted the men of the party into a large dining hall which he himself had built and which was only just finished; here the brother-cellarer had set large goblets which were all dewy outside from the coolness of the wine they contained; that was a drink after the frightful heat! hardly could the thirsty lips part with the bowl till the last drop was drained; there were rich cheese and fragrant rolls too, to stay their hunger till the noon-day meal was ready. For the Abbot would fain do everything that the resources of the house admitted, and its resources were many, for it had long been in a flourishing condition, and the labours and tillage of the monks had been blessed. He sent new milk to the ladies and little wheaten cakes with limpid golden honey, as might beseem fastidious ladies' lips.
Thus he cared paternally and tenderly for his guests, rejoicing at the evident satisfaction with which they enjoyed it. Even the grooms in the court-yard had heavy loads of bread and mead carried out to them, and soon there was such riot and jubilee as if they had entered into the land of Canaan. Nay the thoughtful host had remembered even the dogs; they stood in a circle round a great bowl of cool butter-milk and were lapping it with their hot tongues. Through the railings of the underground windows there rose up a mighty steam and reek of roast and stewed. The choicest fowls and fat joints of hastily slaughtered mutton sputtered on the rarely-used spits, for such a dainty meal was never prepared but for strangers, and the unusual savour of meat pleasantly tickled brother Wyso's nostrils. He could not omit this opportunity of saying spitefully to Correntian,
"Hey! what is that smell?"
"The devil's roast!" said Correntian with a burst of anger, for the whole occurrence was an abomination to him, and he could hardly control his indignation. He muttered the words of the prophet Isaiah, chap. 22: "Et ecce gaudium et lætitia, occidere vitulos et jugulare arietes, comedere carnes et bibere vinum--they slaughter oxen, they slay sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine.Comedamus et libamus, cras enim moriemur--let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."
"Come, come," said Wyso chuckling. "It is not so bad as all that--we shall not die quite so soon as to-morrow, unless we may enjoy ourselves too freely to-day, and eat and drink too much--"
"Et revelata est in auribus meis vox Domini: si dimittetur iniquitas hæc vobis, donec moriamini--and in my ears was the voice of the Lord of Sabaoth: Verily this sin shall not be forgiven thee till thou die!" continued Correntian, but Wyso was not to be silenced.
"If the reverend Abbot grants us a dispensation, God too will forgive us the sin. Not that which goes into the mouth defiles the man, but that which proceeds out of the mouth. Do you understand? Well, why are you staring at me like that with your martyr's face?" he added in a tone of good humoured scolding to Donatus. "When I was your age, would I have girded my hungry stomach with rough haircloth, that I might ride lighter on the road to Heaven? Good Lord! they would have to haul me up with cords now, if I had to take all my earthly ballast up with me. But as we must leave to the earth all that is of the earth, earthy, it is all the same what we stuff ourselves with--that is my view."
Meanwhile the guests within had satisfied their first hunger and thirst, and Duke Meinhard had informed the Abbot of the reason of his visit. His wife Elizabeth of Bavaria had so long felt herself ailing and feeble, that before her end came she would fain do some good deed for the welfare of her soul, and with this end in view she had founded a House of God at Stams in the Ober-Innthal. The building was now far advanced, and she had made up her mind to undertake a journey, in order to inspect all the most distinguished foundations in the country, and thus to inform herself as to what arrangement of the building, what system and preparatory dispositions would be most advantageous to the newly founded religious house. When the noble lady was rested it was her wish that the Abbot might conduct her round the monastery, so that she might see everything for herself.
The Abbot declared himself most ready to aid in so Christian a work, and he designated Donatus, as his favourite and most promising disciple, for the high honour of conducting the Duchess, as the Duke took possession of the Abbot himself, to confer in manly fashion about the neighbourhood, the customs of the inhabitants of Vintschgau, and all sorts of things ecclesiastical and temporal.
Donatus coloured with surprise when the Abbot informed him of his good-fortune; nay his imploring look seemed to convey a remonstrance; but that was impossible, the brethren of the order might never say "no."
Next to the Duke sat a broad-shouldered, dark man, sunk in sullen, brooding silence. His hair was grey, but before its time, his brow morosely wrinkled and marked down the middle with a strong angry vein. He took no part in the conversation, and from the moment when he had taken his place he never once had moved his eyes from the end of the table where Donatus was sitting.
"Well, Count," said the Duke, pushing him to rouse him, and nodding to him over his glass. "You are staring fixedly at that one spot; does that young fellow remind you of your own youth?"
"It is strange, but do not you think that the boy is like me?" muttered the Count.
"He certainly is, to a hair; and if you had a son I could believe it was he. Only you never looked as gentle and sweet as he does; do not you agree with me, Count Reichenberg?"
"Count Reichenberg!" For an instant every face turned pale as the monks heard that name; Donatus only remained quite unconcerned, for he knew not as yet who and what Count Reichenberg was to him.
"By my soul!" cried another of the gentlemen, "you are as like each other as young and old, tender and tough can be."
Count Reichenberg sprang up. "My Lord Abbot," said he, "a word with you."
The Abbot turned paler than before; he exchanged but one rapid glance with the brethren, but they all understood him; then he rose and followed the Count into a deep window-bay.
"My Lord Abbot, I am a connection of yours, do you not know me?" said the knight without farther preface.
"I never saw you," replied the Abbot. "For since my sixteenth year I have lived out of the world as a monk. But if you are the man who married my sister and then repudiated her, you are no relation of mine, there can be no friendship between that man and me."
"I am the man," said Reichenberg defiantly. "I ask you--where that boy came from to you?" He pointed with an angry expression to Donatus.
"He was bequeathed to us," said the Abbot calmly.
"By whom?" The Abbot looked at Reichenberg, measuring him from head to foot with a steady gaze.
"That," he said, "is a secret of the confessional."
"I will pay you for it," the Count whispered in his ear. "Your convent shall benefit largely, I will make over to you by deed a manor and an alp above Taufers with glebe and pasturage, and all rights secured to you--only tell me the name of the boy's parents."
"No, my lord--not a word; did you ever hear that a Benedictine sold the secrets of the confessional?"
The Count stamped his foot.
"Then I will find some means of making you speak by force--at a more opportune moment."
The Abbot looked at him quietly and proudly. "You may kill me, but you can never make me speak."
"Then one of your herd will, who is less steadfast that you."
"I will answer for my brethren, man by man," said the Abbot with dignity.
The Count raised his hand threateningly, "Woe to you if I discover what I suspect--"
"Ho, ho! Count Reichenberg, what are you making this noise about?" and the Duke suddenly stepped between them. "What am I to think of you for thus disturbing the peace of this quiet hour?"
"I will inform you presently, my lord Duke. Just now grant me one word with the young monk there." He signed to Donatus to approach, and the boy rose and came modestly forward.
"Will you tell me who you are?"
"I am a monk," said Donatus, shortly and firmly.
"I see that--but who were you originally--who were your parents?"
Donatus looked calmly at him--"I do not know."
The Count cast a glance of hatred at the Abbot, "Oh, you priests, you priests; who ever got behind your tricks?"
"Pray be easy, Count Reichenberg," said the Duke soothingly. "I did not come here to torment peaceable monks who entertain us hospitably.--Do not take this to heart, my lord Abbot--nor you reverend brethren!" he signed to a servant who was standing by a large chest in a corner. "Look here, I have something to show you!" He opened, the coffer, which the man carried with difficulty, and took out of it a magnificent chalice of pure gold encrusted with garnets and chased with artistic reliefs representing the Passion, a work so fine and costly that the monks had never seen the like.
"Look here, this is the work of master Berthold, the goldsmith of Ulm," said the Duke.
Then he took out a little golden tube with a mouth-piece of amber, such as were in use at that time, in order that, when the Cup was presented, clumsy or greedy partakers might not imbibe too much of the costly wine. Next he produced a heavy golden Paten; this was in the same way set with garnets round the edge, and had two finely chased handles, while on the ground of the dish a cross was engraved. This he set on the table by the side of the Cup that all the brethren might rejoice in the sight. Finally he brought out a dozen of pure silver apples of artistic pierced work and called Calefactories; these were hand-warmers for the monks. They were filled with glowing charcoal and held in the hands to prevent the monks' fingers from being frozen at the early mass in winter.
"Well! how do you like them?" asked the lordly donor, well pleased at the astonishment and admiration with which the monks gazed at the costly treasure. "Do you think they will pay you for our dinner?" The Abbot looked at him enquiringly.
"I do not understand you, my lord!"
"No?--that is my offering in return for your hospitality. You shall have cause to remember the day when you entertained your Duke under your roof."
The brethren, with the exception of Correntian and Donatus, sprang up with confused cries of delighted surprise, "Oh! can it be!" and, "It is too much!" and the Abbot said with moistened eyes,
"You are magnificent in your favours, my Lord, and may God reward you, for we are only poor monks and can make you no return but by blessings and prayers."
"That is all I ask," said Duke Meinhard laughing, "only pray for me stoutly--I am sure to want it, for I hope to commit many more sins, and I shall have great need of the intercession of pious folks with the Almighty." He threw the treasure back into the heavy chest and slammed down the lid.
"There!" he exclaimed, "now take all the property away into your treasury and let us have dinner brought in as soon as possible, for we must proceed to-day to Münster and pass the night there. The Duchess wishes to spend some time in the convent of St. Gertrude, while we men ride to market and hunt in the neighbourhood."
"If it please, your lordship, to wait until we have shown her highness your wife the extent and arrangement of the monastery as she wishes--" suggested the Abbot.
"Aye--pray do so, my lord Duke," urged Wyso anxiously. "It will be to the advantage of your teeth if you leave the fat sheep, which were running about only an hour ago to sweat a little longer in front of the fire."
Reichenberg looked sharply at the fat monk with his thick lips and sensual grin. "You are not the man to die for the sake of keeping a vow," thought he. "When you have well drunk you will make a clean breast of it."
"Very well," said the Duke. "Then we will wait--less for the sake of my teeth than of yours, old gentleman--if indeed you still have any left. You will grant a dispensation this day in our honour, my Lord Abbot, will you not?"
"I will do so, my Lord," said the Abbot smiling, "they may enjoy themselves to their heart's content. And so, Donatus, my son, come now with me that I may conduct you to her ladyship, the Duchess, if she will accept you as her guide."
Donatus rose with simple dignity, and followed the Abbot. The two gentlemen, Meinhard and Reichenberg, looked after him in silence.
"Tell me, Count, what passed between you and the youngster that you got so angry about it?" asked the Duke, pushing back a little way from the table that the others might not overhear them.
"It is a mere whim, if you will," replied Reichenberg in a low voice. "But the boy's resemblance to me struck me amazingly. I--I might have had a child who would have been of just his age, and if it had been a son he might have looked exactly like that, for not only is the lad like me, he has just my wife's eyes and soft voice."
"Your wife's?" said the Duke, and he shook his head.
"My first wife's," said the Count, "whom I repudiated just about the time when my first child would have been born. You were then only a boy, and you were not at the court of your grandfather Albert. My wife was a Ramüss, and hardly were we married when that venomous serpent, the Countess of Eppan, poisoned my ear and heart. Not till last year, when the wretched woman was on her deathbed and sent to me in her last agony, did she confess that she had accused my wife falsely, in order to obtain her place. The name and wealth of the Reichenberg family were an eyesore to her, for she was both poor and haughty; the castle of Reichenberg, as you know, formerly belonged to the house of Eppan. She longed to restore it to them by a marriage with me--her heart was never mine as I saw very plainly later on. Now for a year past I have been wandering about the world, seeking in vain for some trace of my outcast wife. God in Heaven alone knows what may have become of them both, mother and child; my race ends with me, and I myself have driven out the heir that God perhaps had granted me--an outcast--to die! And that boy's eyes struck me like a thunderbolt. He looked just as my wife looked when I drove her away. Duke, if it were he--" The Count was silent, and his lips quivered.
"What good would it do you? It would be too late; he has taken the vows, and you could not break them."
The Count looked darkly before him, and made no reply.
"Your second wife never had much joy of her treason; you repudiated her too if I remember rightly?"
"Yes; at the end of two years the Pope gave me permission to announce that my first wife was dead, and to marry again; my mind had already wandered from the Lady of Eppan, but I had to keep my word--she held me to it hard and fast--and so she became my wife; but I was always away from home in battle and danger, for the world was spoilt for me, and so was all my liking for that false woman. When I returned from my four years' expedition to the Holy Land I found her carrying on an intrigue with Master Friedrich von Sunburc, the minnesinger and chronicler of your father's court. Nay more, a faithful waiting-woman of my first wife who could never get over the loss of her former mistress, betrayed to me that the shameless woman had not long since had a daughter, and had concealed the child with a strange beggar-woman whom she had met gathering berries and simples in the woods; as soon as the news of my return was known, the woman and the child had disappeared, leaving no trace behind. How I punished her, how the minnesinger was expelled from the court by Meinhard the first, and how she died, abandoned to remorse in her own ruined castle, all that you know."
"She was an intriguing coquette," said the Duke shaking his head, "and ensnared all men with her gold-gleaming owl's eyes and her auburn hair. She had something of the witch about her, and I could almost believe that she was one, for you know the common people say that you can tell a witch not by her feet only, but by her eye-brows that meet above her nose; she had such eye-brows you may remember?"
"I do not believe in such things," said Reichenberg sulkily.
"Nor I either," said the Duke laughing. "But there was something not quite canny about her, say what you will."