A book of dear dead women

About the middle of the sixteenth century there was built, on the westward-fronting coast of Istria, a pleasure palace. The builder, Paul, Count of Radknothy, was a Hungarian nobleman of wealth and power, who had traveled widely and formed his taste upon the best models of the day.

On his frequent journeys he tarried oftenest in Venice. The rich and luxurious city held for him the charm it has never failed to hold for the people of the North.

Here he met La Fiorita, a dancer renowned for her beauty. She was his senior by a number of years and a woman of unsavory reputation. The story of her amours, which had been many, sounded like a page from Masuccio, and had been the talk of Italy. She had been persona grata with the nobles of that licentious age. She had ruled as temporary mistress of many a summer palace hidden away among the Italian hills. For Count Radknothy she had the fascination which women of mature years have had for younger men. He married her and took her away to his Istrian home.

She was glad of this lucky stroke of fortune. She realized that, considering the life she had led, her beauty could not last in its perfection.

In the second year after her marriage, shortly before the time of her first confinement, she was miraculously saved from death at the hands of an assassin by a Carthusian nun, whom the blow struck. The assassin, who paid for the attempt with his life, was a follower of her old days, in whose heart her beauty had been more than a fancy.

This escape from death back into the luxurious life she had never ceased to look upon as the kindness of Providence, aroused the religious fanaticism that slumbers in the Italian soul. In return, she made a vow that the unborn child should be sacred to the church. Later, a daughter was born to Count and Countess Radknothy, who was christened Elsbeth.

Overjoyed at her safe delivery, chastened in mind by the favors of Heaven, the Countess decided that the child should take the veil in a convent of the Silent Sisters. Then she felt that she had atoned for the sins of her youth. Accordingly, when little Elsbeth was twelve years old, she was sent to the Hungarian Convent of St. Euthymius.

This convent, which had once been the war-castle of a feudal lord, and which bore witness to its past in its stern and forbidding exterior, was situated in northwestern Hungary, just south of the Little Carpathians, and surrounded by their gloomy forests. It stood on an elevation. On the north a lake lay, whose outlet was the shallow Ipoly, which to southward joins the Danube. It was a hilly, thinly populated country of ancient mansions separated from each other by miles of woodland.

From the convent but one building was visible, the family chapel of the Ràkoczi, a family of royal lineage whose male members had led the wars for Hungarian independence. The castle was on the other side of the chapel and its rear was toward the lake. On the north side of the convent there was but one window. From this the warlike baron used to watch his enemies approach. Beneath the window, clinging to the wall, was a staircase. This was the room which was assigned to Elsbeth.

Notwithstanding her childish immaturity, it was evident that she had inherited her mother’s blond beauty, which, in her case, was made more brilliant by the father’s Hungarian blood. During the two years that had preceded her daughter’s birth, La Fiorita had luxuriated in her Istrian palace. Here, freed from the efforts of a dancer’s life, and cherished by a love in the flower of its youth, her beauty had reached its perfection. In addition, little Elsbeth had inherited her mother’s abundant vitality and her taste for music and dancing.

Because of the child’s love of music and the noble family to which she belonged, the rules of St. Euthymius were lifted, and she was permitted to take her lute with her. La Fiorita consoled herself with the thought that the lute would take the place of conversation, which was forbidden. With this solicitude she dismissed the subject. She felt that she had purchased the forgiveness of Heaven and gave herself over unrestrainedly to the life of pleasure she loved.

It was autumn when Elsbeth reached St. Euthymius. The repellent exterior of the convent-fortress was softened by the richness of the season. Autumn once seen among the mountains of Hungary is something always to remember. A languid radiance enfolds the landscape. The stern Carpathians float in a mist of blue, through which white, fragile birches and fiery maples gleam. The forests and the mountains are reflected in the water. Along the roads ferns expand into fans of gold. The woodlands exhale an aromatic perfume.

The witchery of the season dulled the first pain of separation. But when the rains of November scattered the leaves, and the wind sang about the lonely towers and echoed down the bare corridors, she cried like a little child to go home. The sisters’ efforts to comfort her were vain. Equally vain were their attempts to divert her mind with lessons and prayer. She still cried to go home.

There was no devotional chord in her nature to respond to the good sisters’ teachings. They were like a voice calling in a land where no one lives. When winter came, the entire world was black and white. Without, the snow and the bare trees—or the blacker pines and firs; within, white, echoing rooms, where silent, black-clad figures moved. The sight filled her with grief, and by contrast called to mind her bright-gowned, beautiful mother.

When spring came, she was so pale and thin that the kind sisters would have sent word of her condition to her parents, had it not been expressly stated that no word was to be sent to disturb the peace of the Istrian home.

When she was seventeen, the sisters decided that she was sufficiently instructed in the duties of the order to be made a member. Obediently she took the veil and the vow of silence. This occasioned no fresh grief, since it could not interfere with her source of happiness—her dreams.

In the spring of the following year, shortly after vespers, when she was in her room alone, she heard some one playing upon a lute a melody of enchanting rhythm. Hastily she unfastened the window square. In the melody floated, with the breath of the soft spring night. It came from the lake. She vibrated pleasurably to it. In it were poured out the longing heart of youth and the soft allurements of love. Instinctively she threw off the cloak and hood. She unclasped the black mantle at her throat. In her eyes, upon her face, glowed that look of inspired joy with which La Fiorita had held her admirers. Snatching the lute from the wall, she repeated the melody and improvised an answer. The unknown musician understood and followed her lead. Thus they conversed for an hour through the medium of music.

The next morning Elsbeth was summoned to the Superior. Some of the sisters said that they had heard music in the night coming from her room, and of a kind not suitable for convent walls. Had not years of silence lamed their tongues and made them incapable of utterance, they would have been eloquent in their description of the melodies they had heard. As it was, they insisted vehemently upon their wickedness.

“My daughter,” said the Superior, “since this is the first complaint against you, you shall go unpunished. We have shown forbearance because of your youth. Now that you are older, and have become one of us permanently, it is right that you should obey the rules and uphold them. In the future play sacred music, or such as befits the vows you have taken.” With this the Superior dismissed her.

It was later that night when the lute called beneath her window. Her answer was a sharp note of warning. The unseen musician understood. When again he touched the strings, it was midnight, and the shy summer stars had been hours a-twinkle. He played the same alluring cantilena, but softly, tenderly, as if meant for a loved one’s ears alone. He swept the strings so delicately it was but a breath of musical fragrance upon the night.

Elsbeth trembled. The blood coursed pleasurably through her veins. Her soul expanded with joy. Fear was forgotten. She thought only of the unseen one upon the lake who called to her.

He had understood what she said the night before. He had come again. She took her lute and replied clearly and daringly. Then again the soft melodic whisper floated up from the water. Her answer was firm and triumphant, shrilling on one sustained crystal note of longing. This passionate appeal for life, for freedom, touched the hearer’s heart, as the murmurous caress which followed proved.

Six years had passed since any one had spoken to her like that, six silent years of convent life. She was like one buried alive, calling out to the warm, sweet world on the other side of the grave. Her lute told this in a song of unrest.

The next day there was a solemn meeting of the sisters in the great audience hall of St. Euthymius. Sister Seraphita had heard the music. She had awakened the others, who, in their turn, awakened the Mother Superior. Never had their unworldly ears heard sounds like these. They plunged them into an alien world, where they trembled. They troubled their minds with the tone-pictures they flashed upon the senses. The music concealed a persistent suggestion that there are nobler things than a life of prayer and penance. It brought back memories of forgotten days. It touched their arid hearts to strange tremors. It sent a-flutter insistent voices as the sea sends abroad upon the wind the story of its secret longing. It gave transient energy to dead instincts. It set vibrating thoughts inimical to convent life. The stupidest among them felt this, and they agreed that it must be stopped.

In addition, it had been whispered that it sounded as if two lutes were being played, instead of one. Of course, they knew that that was impossible. No one could gain entrance to the convent. If they did hear two lutes, who was it who played the other one?

A look of awful comprehension brightened their dull old eyes. It was marvelous playing, too. They remembered that. Even the Superior said that she had not heard its equal. No mortal fingers swept that other lute. No mortal fingers could so fill the castle with resonance. There were two lutes! Who played the other? It was Satan who did it—Satan and none other!

Then the Superior recalled what she had heard of the music and dancing madness that had taken possession of the nuns of the south of France in the early years of the church. How it had been proved to be the work of Satan and how the evil spirit had been exorcised. Abbé X—— had written a book about it. After discussing the subject, Elsbeth was sent for.

“My dear daughter,” began the Superior, “it grieved me to learn of your disobedience. I, together with the sisters, have decided that forfeiture of the lute is a just punishment. Sister Seraphita may now bring it to my room and hang it upon the wall. As for you, my daughter, I recommend the prayers for the penitent.” Then she rose, signifying that the session was at an end.

Elsbeth said nothing. Her mind was so filled by the occurrences of the past days that the meaning barely reached her.

That night the melody floated up to where she stood waiting, just as the sickle of the moon swung to a level with the black tree-tops.

How could she answer now? Hastily she unfastened the window. Then she remembered a lace handkerchief belonging to her mother, which she picked up the day they took her away. It was filmy and light. It would float upon the water. He would see it fluttering down. In one corner was embroidered, in the colored needlework of the day, the crest of the house of Radknothy.

The changed music that came told her that he had caught the handkerchief. He understood the message. In the answering tones there was something deferential.

Then he played the melody of the first night, modulating it masterfully, and using the theme as the basic idea for many a sweetly extemporized caprice. As she stood alone in the dim cell listening, while the warm spring night caressed the short, bright curls upon her head, it thrilled her with a joy that was akin to pain. It was like the memory of something that had vanished—a tragic past that had swept her away upon billows of flame. It was the sense-memory of a past whose incidents she could not recall, but whose fervor flashed upon her.

The sisters heard the music. One by one, softly, they crept to the Mother Superior’s door to see if she were awake. There she sat, a terrified, trembling old figure, her eyes staring at the lute upon the wall, while her pale lips murmured a prayer. One by one they peered in to make sure that the lute was really there, hanging motionless upon the wall. Yet its music echoed down the long corridors and floated in at the windows. A ghastly procession they made! Shrunken and hollow of cheek, toothless, yellow and wrinkled of face! The candles silhouetted sharply and distorted their bald and trembling heads.

Yes, there was the lute, motionless, just where Sister Seraphita had hung it. Yet they could hear its music. What a horrible thing! To listen to music made by a lute hung out of reach upon a wall! Their shrunken chins and toothless lips trembled. Their knees knocked together. It was all their old, weak hands could do to hold the candles.

Here was proof of the work of the evil spirit. Every sister in the convent was a witness. Perhaps it was Satan himself who swept the strings. In addition, they had heard that the coming of an evil spirit is accompanied by a breath of cool air or a freshening breeze. Whenever the wind came stronger, the music was noticeably louder. That was another proof.

The next day and the next were given over to prayer. But each night the same dreadful thing occurred, the same luxurious and sinful melody came floating on the midnight. The aged sisters were distracted. They were grieved, too. No scandal had ever touched St. Euthymius.

On the fourth day they met in solemn council, to which Elsbeth was summoned, in order to be questioned. She said that each night, in accordance with the Superior’s orders, she had gone early to bed after repeating thrice the prayers for the penitent. Quickly she fell asleep. Then she dreamed—but so vividly that the following day she was unable to tell the dream from reality—that the Mother Superior came to her door, knocked softly, opened it and held out the lute. She took it and improvised upon it the rest of the night. Softly then again the knocking came, the Superior opened the door, took the lute and went away. Each night she dreamed the same dream. And each morning she found her door as she had left it.

On hearing this the good sisters were more puzzled than ever. One thing, however, was certain. Elsbeth was the medium through which the evil spirit gained entrance. Through her he was trying to draw the Mother Superior into his toils, and thus work the ruin of the convent.

After sifting conflicting opinions, they decided that she should be confined within her room for a month. During that time she was not to see nor hold converse with any one. Food and drink would be placed at her door at regular intervals.

The first days of confinement were lonely. The lute was gone. There was nothing for company. Nor did the first week of confinement have any effect upon exorcising the demon. Each night the trembling old women gathered in the Superior’s room to watch with terrified eyes while the motionless lute made music.

Elsbeth’s only amusement was to stand on tiptoe and look out through the swinging square of the window. It was so high that she could not see anything immediately below. One day while she was standing on tiptoe peering out, her knees, trembling with the strain, struck a projection of the grooved wood, and she felt the wall yield as if a door were there.

Getting down on her knees, she scrutinized every curve of the decorative wood to see if a spring could be found. She knew the room had belonged to the old Baron who built the castle, and that it was unlike the others. Since the hidden spring—if such an one there were—did not disclose itself to the eye, she determined to follow with her fingers every scroll of the panel, pressing evenly upon each in turn.

About half-way up to the lower edge of the window, at about the height where her knees had been, a whorl of polished wood slipped from sight. The panel swung out and the level lake lay before her. Leaning out, she found that the stairway which she had seen from the edge of the water was within reach. This was the old Baron’s place of secret exit.

That night, when the unknown serenader touched his lute, she opened the door, swung lightly to the stair top and motioned silence. The listening sisters, who heard the music begin, then cease abruptly, were filled with thankfulness. After waiting an hour and hearing no recurrent sound, they crept back to their beds, secure in the thought that the exorcising of the demon had begun.

In a little boat at the foot of the stairs sat a man holding a jeweled lute. It seemed to Elsbeth that she had always known him. He looked just like the men with whom she had been acquainted for years in her dreams. Like them, he was dark and young. Like them, too, he was handsome and had come to fetch her in a boat. He wore the costume of an Hungarian nobleman of the middle of the sixteenth century: a light blue mantle fancifully braided, of Polish cut, thrown coquettishly over one shoulder, called in those days kabodion; black velvet breeches, a round-topped hat and a tight-fitting dress coat, such as were worn by men of birth, called mente. Years of silence had thrown her so completely upon herself for companionship that it had become difficult to tell the real from the unreal. The one who waited in the boat was merely a proof of the reality of dreams.

He, on his part, saw a girl-woman of magnificent proportions coming swiftly down the steps. Upon her head a halo of little curls shone in the light. Her face was very white, but in her eyes there was the look with which La Fiorita had gone to meet her lovers. So familiarly did she hasten to him that he felt himself drawn within the magic circle of her day dreams, where nothing was impossible, and held out his hands impulsively to help her to a seat.

Yet, how can any one tell in what other life we have met, how close the tie that bound us, whose fibers vibrate on in this!

“Where shall we go?” he asked, admiration shining in his eyes.

“Down there, around the bend of the lake, where the sisters cannot hear our voices.”

He bent to the oars, and a silver furrow stretched behind them. Meanwhile Elsbeth looked attentively at her companion. His youth pleased her. He was the only one she had met who was young like herself.

Prince Ràkoczi was about twenty-eight. He had been married some years to an Italian woman many years his senior. The Princess—known as the Princess of the Bloody Heart, because of a heart of rubies which she invariably wore—was descended from the Italian house of Montanelli. The head of this house was known throughout Europe for the making of skillful and artistic instruments of torture. It was due to her father, Alonzo Montanelli, that in that age murder had reached the dignity of a fine art, and was accompanied by the exquisite decorative setting that befits a fête. The name, Montanelli, was password to every torture chamber of Europe.

Once around the bend, she said: “Where are we going?”

“To my chapel yonder.”

“Shall we be alone?”

“Quite alone.”

“Then I will play upon your lute.”

“You shall have another like it for yourself,” he said, handing it toward her, while the moon found the heart of a crimson stone and flashed red light upon his hand.

At sight of the richly lighted chapel, her eyes shone like a little child’s at sight of a Christmas tree. So great was her capacity for happiness that she forgot the past in the pleasure of a moment.

He led her into the chapel. “You cannot imagine what I thought when I first saw you. I thought that you were the original of a picture that hangs here. That Magdalene is not a painter’s dream. It is the portrait of the woman whom my father loved. During my mother’s life the picture was not hung. It was only after I came into possession of the estate that it was taken from its place of concealment. It is La Fiorita, a dancing girl whom my father knew in Venice in his youth.” Looking up, Elsbeth saw a voluptuous Venetian beauty, whose face stirred vague memories.

When they rowed back to the convent, the moon was low in the sky. The lake was dull and tarnished. In the tops of the trees a crisp wind shivered that told of dawn.

During the days that followed, Elsbeth was glad of her imprisonment. She escaped the sisters’ prying eyes. They who live in solitude are skilled in reading the heart.

Each night the Prince came for her, and they drifted down the lake, explored its recesses, improvised upon their lutes within the chapel, or reclined upon the steps to talk of love. In this way a month passed away.

To the good sisters of St. Euthymius the month had brought comfort. The evil spirit was controlled and put to flight. They could sleep in peace, their timid old hearts untroubled by fear. Now the lute hung silent upon the wall. There had been no recurrence of the melody. The prayerful penance of Elsbeth had exorcised the demon.

The Superior called a council. It was agreed that Elsbeth should spend another month in prayer and silence. When the word was brought to her, she received it humbly. The Superior’s heart was filled with gratitude. Her patience was bearing fruit.

One night, after the beginning of the second month, when Elsbeth and Prince Ràkoczi entered the chapel, he rushed to fasten the door that communicated with the castle.

“Why do you do that?” inquired Elsbeth.

“The Princess has arrived. Of course there is little danger of her coming here. Yet it is best to be safe.”

Then they forgot about her in their love and joy in each other, and set about perfecting plans for Elsbeth’s escape from the convent.

“Listen, little one,” the Prince continued, drawing her to him, while the candles struck rich colors from his braided kabodion and accented the pallor of his face. “It is arranged for to-morrow night. A larger boat and two oarsmen will come for us here. They will row us to the end of the lake. There an old servant will await us with a carriage. He will take you to a hunting lodge of mine, to the east of here, near the Bohemian Forest. There, as soon as I can make arrangements, I will join you, and together we will go to Italy. I have a present for you for to-morrow night, too—a dress and a jewel, brought all the way from Stamboul. You shall put it on, and we will celebrate our marriage here at the altar—”

“What was that—a knock?”

“Yes.”

“The Princess?”

“It must be. No one else would come. We must be quick. I will get into that chest there, beneath the picture. Turn the jeweled fruit to the right. That locks it. Then go to the altar and say your prayers. If she questions you, your quick wits must frame an answer.”

When Elsbeth unbolted the door, a tall, gaunt woman approaching middle age swept in. She wore a long, dark, cloaklike garment of morit, and a violet-colored kazabajka, while her hair was partially hidden beneath a white csepesz. Suspended from her neck was a ruby heart. She had narrow, side-glancing eyes, a long oval face, and thin lips. Her expression indicated cruelty.

“My fair nun, how came you here—and at this hour?”

“Most gracious Princess,” replied Elsbeth, bending in salutation, “last night I had a dream in which I saw The Virgin of the Red Girdle poise in the air above the Ràkoczi chapel. That, as the gracious Princess knows, bodes ill. I made a vow to avert the ill by prayerful intercession at the altar.”

“And you chose night, good sister, for your beneficent purpose?”

“By day, most gracious Princess, I am occupied with convent duties. Therefore I sacrifice to it the hours of sleep.”

“But the Prince—does he help you? Where is he?”

“The Prince? Your Highness will see that I am at my prayers alone, and with your gracious permission I will return to them.”

The Princess made a signal of dismissal, and Elsbeth knelt with her rosary at the altar.

Princess Ràkoczi was too astute and too well versed in the intrigues of that subtle age to take the nun’s smoothly spoken words at their face value. She saw, too, that the nun was a woman of great beauty. The disfiguring garb could not hide that. She made a tour of the chapel. Around the outer edge, at the base of the walls, were placed coffers in which the church silver, the relics, and the priestly vestments were stored. From time to time, as she made this tour of inspection, she glanced sharply at Elsbeth, to see if she were intent upon her beads. When she had completed the circuit, she paused at Elsbeth’s right and bent to look at the gem-decorated carving of the chest that stood beneath the picture of La Fiorita. As she bent down, she heard a sharp sound. Looking up, she saw that the rosary had dropped upon the marble altar and that the nun’s hands were trembling.

“I have found him!” she thought. “What a lesson I will teach them!” Jealous rage pinched her pale features to a cruel thinness. Aloud she said: “Good sister, I thank you for your unselfish watchfulness.”

Elsbeth rose and remained bowing while the Princess passed out. When she had been gone a sufficient time for safety, the nun bolted the door and released the Prince.

“You shall not have another experience like this!” he said, clasping her in his arms.

“But to-morrow night?”

“She would not spy upon us two nights in succession.”

On the way across the lake, the sparkles of light upon the water were not more numerous than the words of love which he lavished upon Elsbeth. They erased from her mind the disagreeable occurrence. She thought only of the morrow, of escape—and of the gorgeous gown and the jewel that had come from Stamboul.

As soon as they left the chapel, the Princess had the door unbolted, and entered, followed by two men bearing a chest identical in size and design with the one that stood beneath the picture. In obedience to her command they exchanged them, and took the former chest back to the castle.

The next night found Elsbeth on the stairs waiting eagerly. When Prince Ràkoczi came, she took the package he gave her and ran back to her room. When again she came out, she wore a short white satin princess dress, heavily embroidered in seed pearls. It was cut low and square at the neck, and flared at the bottom. It resembled in style and cut the votive robes made for statues of the Virgin. About her neck was a cross of diamonds. The convent cloak was thrown over her arm, to be used in case of need.

No sooner had they entered the chapel and seen to the safe bolting of the door, than with kisses and caresses he led her to the picture of La Fiorita. Moving a few steps away, he paused and looked at her.

“You cannot imagine how greatly you resemble that picture. In certain ways the faces are identical. The difference is that you have not lived so much. That is the woman my father loved. This is the woman whom I love. As she was the grief of his life, you will be the happiness of mine—” An imperative knock interrupted him.

Elsbeth donned the cloak and hood, drawing it carefully over the whiteness of her gown. Then she unbolted the door. Graciously the Princess entered.

“My good sister, I am going to take you from your prayerful duties for a few moments to-night to gratify a curiosity of mine.”

“I shall be most happy to serve you, Gracious Princess,” murmured Elsbeth.

“I have heard,” she continued, “that beneath the fingers of a pure woman the opal loses its angry fire and becomes white like a pearl. It is my wish to find out if that is true. Now on that chest there—the one beneath the repentant Magdalene—opals are set. You, of course, having had no occasion to observe the chest, have not seen them. I will make the test in the light of this candle, if you will come. Now observe the decoration on the chest front, a procession of wise men bearing offerings to the infant Christ. It was designed and made by Maestro Benedetto da Majano and is well-nigh priceless. Notice the rich softness of the wood—its depth of color. Do you see how it poises between the shades of brown and red? Look at that kneeling figure there, holding up a plate filled with fruit. The fruit in the center of the plate is made of opals. Now place your finger upon the central one, the apple. It represents, I fancy, the forbidden fruit of the tree of life.

“That’s right. That’s right. Remarkable! Remarkable! It has grown pale—see! So have you, good nun. Why is that? Why does your hand tremble? Hold it more firmly, that I may see. There!—there!—Now press your fingers on that central stone.”

Elsbeth obeyed. As she did so, a shriek rang out, so heartrending, so horrible, it curdled the blood. Again a shriek of mortal anguish—then silence.

Above her, stern and erect, Princess Ràkoczi towered, her thin face illumined by the pointed candle. Without a word she gathered up her rustling robe and walked away.

When she had gone, Elsbeth lifted the chest lid. “Merciful God!” she cried. “Help! Help! Help!” Again and again she called, until her throat felt numb and weary.

When she pressed her finger to the opal, she had touched a spring that released round, needle-like darts of steel, which had been concealed beneath the satin lining. The body within was shredded into ribbons. In the space of a moment it had become an unrecognizable mass of pulp. Across it lay a silver heart, shining dimly, and beside it two tiny marble Cupids held chains of roses, which were dotted with blood.

Madly she grasped the steels, attempting to tear them away. But she succeeded only in making deep wounds in the palms of her hands. She ran to the castle door, determined to have revenge. The door was fastened on the other side. When she beat upon it and tried to call for help, she found she could not speak. Her throat was paralyzed. She was dumb.

The next morning, when the sisters of St. Euthymius came to tell her that they had decided to release her from her confinement, they found her lying upon her bed, robed in white satin and pearls, a cross of diamonds upon her breast. When they spoke to her in their astonishment at the sight that met their eyes, and asked for an explanation, she pointed to her mouth. They understood. She had taken the vow of eternal silence. Then she held up her hands. The palms were dotted with spots of red. They fell upon their knees in reverence and adoration, crying: “A miracle! The stigmata! The stigmata!” They saw, too, that her face was changed, and that her hair was streaked with white.

For the remainder of her life, which lasted twenty-five years, Saint Elsbeth was never known to break her vow of silence.

The white robe and the diamond cross which came down from heaven when she was made the bride of Christ possessed greater healing efficacy than any relics in Hungary. Their power was oftenest called into service by maidens and young lovers, until Saint Elsbeth became the patron saint of the heart. Through these relics Saint Euthymius became the richest convent in all Hungary and the most widely known for the piety of its inmates.

There are certain days of midsummer when the convent is gratuitously open to the public. Then the room with its tiny window overlooking the lake is shown, where the miracle was wrought, and the white satin robe and diamond cross came down from heaven to honor Saint Elsbeth, who was the bride of Christ.