CHAPTER XII.
Paul lay in the still dark torture-chamber in a senseless stupor. In spite of his uncomfortable position his wearied head sank on the beam blackened with age and stained with blood, and he remained in an almost half sleeping half fainting state. His ear however heard the song of the heavenly hosts, and his soul was filled with joy at suffering and atoning for the many wrongs which he had caused. By degrees his fantastic thoughts assumed a more distinctive connection and he determined to avail himself of any examination, either before the judges or on the rack, to aid in the liberation of Erastus and of his daughter. It was good for him to be here. He must now be heard. To cause him to disappear without leaving traces, was even beyond Pigavetta's power. The most terrible tortures would be the most welcome, if he could but say to himself afterwards: "Thou hast atoned, thou art forgiven." His fantastic stupor was about to change into a veritable slumber, when he was startled by a long drawn sigh proceeding from the rack. He looked up and saw the wearied eyes of old Sibylla fixed on him.
"You are not dead yet, Mother," he said gently and kindly to the witch.
"So in reality it is you," replied the old woman in a husky tone. "They have tortured me so severely that I thought I was out of my senses, and saw only what I wished. For I wished to see you, wished cursingly to see you, and now I am too weary, too weak to rejoice thereat. Ah!" and again a deep sigh re-echoed through the gloomy silent chamber.
"Why did you so desire to see me?" asked Paul.
Again the witch fixed him with her glassy dead eyes. Then choked the words out. "Did you not lead them; who bade you cut off an old woman's escape?"
"Why did you sell yourself to the Devil?"
"There is no Devil," said the old woman indifferently.
"No Devil?" cried out the priest. "You ought best to know that one exists, you who have so often attended the fearful revels on the Kreuzweg."
"For thirty years have I sat on the Holtermann and by the Linsenteich, and crept at midnight into the Jettenhöhle, and have muttered all the incantations taught me by my parents, but all remained still. Lately I thought to see him, but it was only the miller's boy at his tricks."
"And you never went out there, to drink and to dance with the fiends, and to whore with the Devil?"
"If I could do that would I be lying here?" said the old witch in a tone of contempt. "I spake all the curses that are known. 'Here I stand on the dung and deny Jesus Christ.' I sang his own song: 'Come, Come, Satan, jump here, jump there, hop here, hop there, play here, play there,' or 'Come out, come on, touch nowhere on, Hie up and out.' But none availed. I have prayed to the Devil, and enticed the elves, but nothing moved; it is all nonsense."
"Why did you not rather pray to God?"
"There is no God," said the old woman in the same apathetic tone.
"You blaspheme," said Paul angrily. "You will soon see, when they stretch the fair Lydia out here, and scourge her with ropes, and burn her with sulphur, whether He helps. And Erastus, and Xylander, and the daughter of Pithopöus, and Probus' wife, and Probus himself."
"What! have you named them all?"
"They are as guilty as I am. At first I remained silent and would not answer, but they held my nose closed, so that I had to open my mouth to breathe. Then they shoved an iron pear with a spring into my mouth, which distended my jaws. I thought I should choke to death. One learns to speak then."
"But what made you mention those names?"
"Well the gentlemen kept asking me questions one after the other, and I thought they would torture me less if I said yes. I heard the Italian with the yellow face say: 'notorious heretics may always be presumed to be magicians,' and then they said 'Probus' yes, no, 'Xylander,' 'Pithopöus,' no, not he, 'Erastus' and thus I snapped up the names. It hurts to hang thus, and they kept putting on heavier weights to my legs. You will find out how it hurts when they wrench the joints out of their sockets. At length I noticed that they kept on as long as I gave any answer, so at last I was silent and kept my eyes fixed on the parson with the greenish hue. That was too much for him, so he left. But the Italian was the worst, he ordered me to be stretched out here and sulphur threads to be placed under my arms and round my fingers and then to be lit, till I confessed that Erastus had also danced on the Holtermann and sprung over the he-goat Devil. Then they went on with the torture of blows till I pretended to die. Old women are tough. We have little blood and require little, therefore it lasted longer. My grandmother was tortured for thirteen days." The old woman's speech became more and more indistinct. It seemed as if she were talking to herself, her narration became so jerky, at one time unintelligible, at another scarcely audible. She kept murmuring about her experiences, how often she had sought after the Devil and never found him, sometimes chuckling and grinning to herself. Then she said as if in excuse, that people only required the magic wares, which were prepared at the right time and at the right place. She would not cheat her customers. If they paid a good price it was her duty to give them the veritable article, otherwise anybody would be selling their trash. Her talk became more and more confused and jumbled. Paul could not tell whether she had become insane, or was in possession of her senses. He shuddered. Then her murmurs changed into a rattle, her broken body was shaken with severe quiverings, one more shiver and then it was over. The herb picker of the Kreuzgrund was this time in reality a corpse.
For many hours Paul sat on the block alone, his limbs began to swell up. A violent pain in his head and an unendurable thirst tortured him, but he laid his head on the beam sticky with the sweat and blood of his numerous predecessors of both sexes, and repined not. Towards evening he was startled from his fainting condition by the creaking of the door. As he looked up, Pigavetta stood before him.
"Magister," said the Italian, "I hope you have thought over the foolish way you acted this morning. Let this disagreeable day replace the exercitia which I should have had to impose on you for a few weeks, and let us calmly discuss how to get you out of this dangerous situation."
Paul remained silent, and did not raise his head from the block.
"You are to be tried to-morrow before the Commission," continued Pigavetta. "I will spare you the necessity of appearing as Erastus' prosecutor, as you seem to be in a secretive mood. You must however testify, with as far as I am concerned the necessary mental reservation, if that quiets your conscience, that Erastus has often spoken to you in private as if he were tainted with Unitarianism, has denied the Holy Trinity, and praised the works of Servetus and Blandrata. You know as well as I do that he is in reality a heretic, deserving therefore of any punishment. As to your silly assignation with his daughter you have only to say, that you wished to prove to your satisfaction, whether she in reality did go at suspicious hours to the Kreuzweg, as had been reported to you. It is lucky that your presence at Speyer on that very evening can be proved. The Rector will testify that you were with him at ten o'clock. Do you consent? Answer!"
"Erastus has never stated to me that he was an Arian," answered the prisoner shortly.
"That is a matter of indifference," said Pigavetta impatiently. "You know how many Doctors of our order permit the probable to be sworn to as the veritable, if by so doing the greater evil can be avoided, of permitting a culprit to escape unpunished, and to continue raging against the Church."
"I know that it is written: 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,'" replied Paul in a quiet voice.
"Childishness," cried Pigavetta angrily. "I charge you in obedientia majoris, to testify to this statement. You have nothing to do with the responsibility, I take that on myself."
"The pangs of conscience which I have suffered, have not been borne for me by any superior;" said Paul in a tone of mild reproof. "I have felt, that if a man carries hell in his own heart, all the blessings of the Church cannot bring back his peace of mind. I cannot live with a threefold or tenfold murder on my conscience. No Priest's absolution would drive away the shades of Erastus or Lydia from my couch."
"You are in love," rejoined Pigavetta mockingly.
Paul kept silence.
"In that case I can help you," continued Pigavetta in an easy tone. "I shall cause Lydia to be brought here, then you can have it all your own way. Witches' trials often last for years, and here you have plenty of elbow room. She will not be the first who was tamed in the witches' chamber."
"Satan," answered Paul shuddering.
"Hear me, young fop," hissed Pigavetta, "my patience is now at an end. You know what the consequences of your disobedience will be. What the judges will do with your bones I will not speak of, that is your affair and theirs. But what we shall do, that I can tell you. The order expels you, and do not believe that you will ever again find peace on earth. The sort of man you are, lies depicted in the archives of the Society, depicted by your own hand. Wherever you may seek shelter, service, position, fortune, your own confessions will testify against you."
Paul raised his head smiling: "That is all over, my good Sir, trouble yourself no longer, those bands are cut asunder. Since I no longer wish to pass off for a saint you can relate my sins to everyone. What was it that used formerly to terrify me? My childish confessions! Tell the gentlemen in Venice that since through you I have blood on my conscience, the ink in which my weekly confessions were written has paled, they can cause them to be printed if it so pleases them, and I will relate in addition the services which under your guidance I have rendered to the Church."
"The Church expels you, accursed one."
"I have been expelled ever since I followed you," sighed Paul. "Since then I carry hell within me, and I now know that no priestly absolution inscribes me in the book of life, should I not be there, and no Priest blots out my name, once entered therein by the Grace of God."
"Thus is it with you!" said Pigavetta. "Have you also turned heretic? If the Holy Church is no longer anything to you, look at this corpse. Do you wish to end your days thus tortured?"
"My inward agonies," continued Paul inclining his head towards his heart, "will become less if you add to them the external sufferings of fire and steel. Spare your words, I have surrendered myself entirely to God's mercy."
"Heretic," hissed Pigavetta. Paolo remained silent. The old Jesuit sought some other argument by which he could convince the young fool, but at that moment steps resounded outside. The length of the conference appeared suspicious to Master Ulrich and he stuck his head in at the door. Pigavetta turned to leave. "If the grounds do not appear obvious to you, this worthy gentleman will set you on the right track by means of thumbscrews and Spanish boots."
"We'll twist him about so that the sun will shine through him," said the executioner grinning. The door closed and Paul remained alone in his agonizing posture.
CHAPTER XIII.
A religious discussion was being held in the new court of the Castle. The Rector of the University, two Professors of theology and two Jurists had entered into the Kurfürst's study to consult as to the advisability of receiving Erastus again as Church Counsellor and of repealing the sentence of excommunication. After some time Erastus himself was led out of his prison across the court. A deep-blue September sky looked down on the beauteous square surrounded by palaces. The lindens on the Bastion were already turning yellow, the asters bloomed in the beds surrounding the spring, the sparrows were besporting themselves in the trellis-work, and were fighting over the ripening grapes. Erastus gazed long and joyously about him and drew in long thirsty draughts the first delicious breath of freedom. Then he cast an astonished look at the "new building," which owing to Felix's art had attained a beauty which it had never possessed before. "A worthy man," he said commendingly, "in spite of his brother." He then calmly ascended the well-known staircase leading to the chambers of his sovereign, where the discussion was to take place. Herr Bachmann stepped up respectfully to the liberated court physician, Erastus however held out his hand to the porter in his usual friendly manner.
Within the discussion was carried on long and eagerly, and Herr Bachmann tired of standing sat down with a sigh on a bench, saying: "It will be well when the old Counsellors once more meet together. The new always remain three times as long," and he dozed off. The good fellow was able to enjoy his nap thoroughly and then return to his waking condition with a feeling of comfort, which is ever the best part of an afternoon snooze. That day he had plenty of time to render his limbs supple by pacing up and down, for the members did not seem to be able to come to any decision. At last chairs and tables were pushed aside. "God be praised," said Bachmann, "this time they set hard to work." At the same moment the five professors appeared at the door; the Rector Magnificus first with an air of importance suitable to his office, the Jurists with a somewhat mocking look of malicious joy, the Theologians with long faces and unusually green complexions. "The theological faculty always precedes," said the Rector with sarcastic politeness. The two men of God passed down the stairs before him without any acknowledgement. "Is the discussion at an end?" asked Bachmann modestly of the Rector. "At an end like my departed cousin," replied the jovial gentleman.
"And Herr Erastus," inquired the servant.
"Is once more, privy Counsellor, court physician, Church Counsellor."
"The great God in Heaven be praised," cried Bachmann. "These Italians were becoming unbearable. And the church discipline?" he added inquisitively.
"Aha, you are thinking of your cards and beer at the Hirsch. Well, the best of that bad joke is, that Herr Olevianus was obliged to mix much water with his wine. But still I would not advise you to rattle the dice in the Prince's antechamber."
Whilst the gentlemen were thus joking with the servant, the Prince stood within with both his hands laid on Erastus' shoulders, saying to him in a kindly voice: "Can you forgive me, Erastus, for having treated you so badly?"
"Your Gracious Highness only fulfilled his duties as father of his dominions," replied Erastus modestly. "I have nothing to forgive."
"Be assured that only within the last few days have I thoroughly learned what a treasure I possessed in you. These religious men are all false. However cast down they might seem to appear at your disgrace, nevertheless a silent triumph shone through their ill-painted mask of sorrow. It is not to them, but only to the poor Italian crippled by the rack that we owe the solution of the game."
"To him," said Erastus astonished, "I always considered him to be the traitor."
"He may have been so at first; but immediately on his first trial, he told Pigavetta to his face, that he had compelled him as his Jesuit superior to write that letter to Neuser which was laid among your papers, and offered to immediately write such another which would resemble your handwriting just as well. The proof was not thoroughly convincing because the poor man's arm was swollen through his sufferings and his hand trembled. Then it came to pass that they tortured him to the fourth degree, to extract a confession from him, that you had tried to talk him over to Arianism. He was also called upon to acknowledge that he attended with your daughter the witches' sabbath on the Holtermann, and executed his miracles and cures at Schönau by means of the black art. God knows, who instructed the old witch, but she said exactly what your enemies desired. She had seen at the last witches' sabbath on the Staffelstein near Bamberg a large black he-goat with fiery eyes, which came flying through the air from Heidelberg. A long broom stuck out of the animal's body behind, on which all the opponents of the Church discipline were seated, Probus and his wife, you and your fair child, Xylander and his maid and Pithopöus with his five lean daughters. Moreover she pretended to have seen you on the Holtermann, near the Three Oaks, the hollow Chestnut, the Linsenteich, and wherever the fiends besport themselves, where you drank in the sensuous love of the Devil, and where you last Saint John's day were baptized with blood, sulphur and salt, and after the baptism the devil assumed the shape of a goat, on whom you all had to jump in turn with out-stretched legs."
"And those gentlemen could believe all that nonsense!" replied Erastus with a sad bend of his head.
"They believed it so firmly that nothing but the martyr-courage of the young Jesuit could save you. A veritable hero! The protocol of which I will however spare you the perusal seems to be describing the sufferings of some martyr. I am an old man, but I wept like a child, when I read here, what the poor man endured. Though they poured aquavitae on his back, which they then lit, and wrenched his limbs out of their sockets, he maintained his account that the old witch had recanted to him all that she had stated before her death. She had only accused you all to please the members of the Commission. He moreover stated that the executioner entered the room in the middle of the night and twisted the head of the old woman quite round, so as to be able to say that the Devil killed her. He however had recognized Master Ulrich and distinctly heard the wrenching of the bones. The Theologians were so check-mated that they wished to torture him still more, but finally the order of trial occurred to the Jurists and they declared that he should not be tortured any further till new evidence should be brought against him, I then heard for the first time how the matter stood. I naturally at once deprived Hartmann of his office and ordered Pigavetta's arrest. The officers caught the Italian in his room as he was packing up. He must have remarked that there was an end to his latin. But they foolishly permitted him to change his clothes in a neighboring room. He very naturally did not return, and in his room they discovered a shaft with a pulley, which let him down in a moment to the lowest flight nearest to the front door. He is said to have played all sorts of pranks by means of this pulley, moreover the officers found other secret apparatus and magic books. If he be caught let him look out for the stake. He will not have tortured Laurenzano to pieces in vain if I can only lay my hand on him."
"The poor young man," sighed Erastus.
"There is something I wished to beg of you. The young Lazarus still lies in the Tower, as the physician of the hospital whom I sent to him, declared, that he must not be moved. You are master of your art. My conscience would be much relieved if you could only manage to cobble him up again. I will look after his future welfare."
Erastus consented. He then begged that his daughter might be allowed to return to her home.
"That is a matter of course," answered the Kurfürst. "She is acquitted and need fear no further prosecution. The Theologians said something indeed about doing penance for going to the Holtermann at night, but the others maintained that if Lydia had thrown herself into the breach to save her father, she deserved praise from the pulpit, if however the young Parson had turned her head for one day, she had been more than sufficiently punished by the fright she had experienced."
"I should feel however much better satisfied," replied Erastus, "if Your Highness would distinctly tell the judges, that Lydia was no longer to be watched as a suspect, which generally happens after such an unfortunate charge."
"That I will," said the Kurfürst. "Your child shall be as free as the roe in the wood."
"I thank Your Grace. Now I may thoroughly rejoice in my freedom."
Soon after this father and daughter came out hand in hand from under the darksome portal of the Great Tower, and crossed the sunny court of the new building. Klytia saw with pride what Felix had done here, and when she found that her room had been aired and adorned with fresh flowers, she asked herself, why her thoughts remained so fixed on the prison of the priest, who after all had brought his fate upon himself, while tokens of Felix's love accompanied her wherever she went, even through the walls of the Great Tower. Had he not even risked his life in an attempt to set her free, as Frau Belier had once whispered to her? Nevertheless the look she gave the flowers was cold and inanimate, whilst she asked: "Where will you take him to?"
"Ah, the Magister meanest thou? I think Belier will not refuse to play the Samaritan's part. The patient can easily endure the short journey, and he will find no better care than there anywhere."
"Well, then I will run round to Frau Belier and prepare everything."
She was already down the stairs, and with a shake of his head the physician made ready to visit the sick man, who according to the Prince's account had been both his traitor and saviour. The poor man had been terribly punished, but Erastus could not yet pardon him for the danger into which he had brought Lydia.
CHAPTER XIV.
Paul Laurenzano was brought to the house on the marketplace in order to recover under the tender care of Erastus and Frau Belier from his severe wounds. "The burns," said the physician to Herr Belier, after that the patient had been put to bed in a room high above all noise from the street, "are bad but not mortal. When two thirds of the skin as in this case are uninjured the patient usually recovers. The joints are wrenched but not torn. He is young and will survive, still he must be a burden on you for some time, if he is not to suffer from the consequences for the rest of his life."
"No Huguenot ever considers one unjustly persecuted as a burden," said the Frenchman. "We know from experience what our duty requires."
Frau Belier cast the first kindly look at Felix since the melancholy death of her parrot and said: "We shall soon have the poor young man up on his legs again."
"I shall have time to aid you, noble lady," replied the young Maestro, "I have been turned away from my work in the Castle."
"What! How ungrateful," cried Frau Belier and the others in one breath.
"The Kurfürst must have been told to whom the reverend Parson Neuser owed through a lucky qui pro quo his escape. He paid me off and ordered me at the same time to give up the plans of the Castle, I also received a hint that in consequence of suspicious proceedings in connection with Neuser's flight all foreigners had to leave the castle."
"I cannot blame the noble gentleman," said Erastus. "He is naturally of a mild disposition; spring cannot be milder. He would only have punished Vehe and Suter by banishment, and he would have even forgiven Neuser; it is quite proper that he should not permit any interference in his affairs. It may be presumed that our friend would have had to pay dearer for his gymnastics, were it not that the kind-hearted man is weary of punishing, so that the daring brother escapes through Paul's sufferings."
"It is the same with him as with me," replied Felix with a smiling side glance at the plump hostess. "Had I not slaked my Neapolitan thirst for blood on the parrot, neither this Hartmanni, nor Master Ulrich, nor Pigavetta would have lived longer."
"Private justice is not necessary in this country, my dear friend," said Erastus. "Pigavetta will be prosecuted by law. The Magistrate is ab officio suspended, and punishment will be meted out to the other wretches for their misdeeds."
"Would that Paul could only get the use of his limbs again by this means," said Felix sighing.
"Remain with us, Master Laurenzano," said Belier, "and watch over your brother. You can have a room near the beloved patient, and there work at the plans of my new house. That is a quiet, serious occupation which cannot disturb the sick man, and on the other hand the stillness of the sick-room will be agreeable to your Muse. Design there the façade, and therein strive to emulate that of the building of the deceased Count Palatine, that is naturally, in so far as the house of a private citizen can vie with that of a prince."
"Take now the hand of reconciliation," said Frau Belier. "There shall no longer be any blood between us, I forgive you the death of the poor parrot."
The architect seized the hand with a look of comical contrition. "I cannot order masses to be read for the rest of the soul of one nipped in the flower of his youth," he said, "but I will immortalise him on the façade, and erect a monument to him in spite of many Counts."
While they were all thus joking together and forming plans for the future, Klytia slipped quietly away. This merriment after the dreadful visitations of the previous days grieved the kind-hearted child, and she went upstairs to sit with the nurse, so as to be able to listen to Paul's heavy breathing and feverish fantasies, in the room next to his. His eyes gleamed like those of a prophet, his cheeks were tinged with a feverish glow and an unearthly beauty had come over his idealised features. His lips moved unceasingly, and it seemed as if the fever had caused the long suppressed desire for companionship of this reserved man to burst all sluices. Earliest impressions of youth were by this revolution of his mental and physical life once more called to life. He spoke oftenest with his mother calling her by pet names. "I shall certainly never lie again," he said in the convinced tone of a small child, calling tears to Lydia's eyes. Klytia herself was ever prominent in his fantasies as a sister. "I really did not intend to do Lydia any harm, Mother," he said. "I only wished to kiss her. Is that wrong?" and so saying he tossed about. "If I were only not obliged to return to that horrid school. But I will pretend to be as stupid as Bernardo the hunch-back, then they will certainly expel me and say they do not require me any longer." After a while he would cry out: "But mother says I ought never to pretend." The terrors of the last days curiously enough seemed to have made hardly any impression on his mind. He only once said: "It is very well, that they beat me in this manner, now it is all over and no one can again reproach me for anything." In general all his worst impressions were connected with the school at Venice. Pigavetta was a wicked teacher, Ulrich the executioner was the "brother corrector," the Church counsellors represented the collegium of professors, the remembrance of the present seemed on the other hand to be entirely wiped away from his memory. But once only, as Felix sat at his bed-side, did it seem to recur to him. With an expression of the most intense moral fear he called out: "Save the parsons." Felix then stooped over him and whispered in his ear: "I have freed Neuser, and the others have been pardoned." "Oh!" sighed the sick man as if relieved of a heavy burden and casting a piteously grateful look at his brother. From that time his restlessness seemed to lessen gradually. His strained expression disappeared. It was replaced by excessive weakness. So soon as he awoke his nurse brought him some nourishment, his wounds were dressed afresh, after which he immediately sank into his somnolent state.
Felix had arranged his atelier near to Paul's bedroom and worked quietly and diligently at his plans for Belier's new house. Klytia took her place as nurse in the room between them so often as her duties towards her father allowed her, and Frau Belier repeatedly put the searching question to her towards which of the two rooms did her heart most incline. Paul's presence had in fact the same influence on Klytia's tender heart as formerly, without however detracting from her feelings of gratitude and tender friendship towards Felix. In nursing Paul she often met Felix and they neither seemed ever to consider the question as to what should take place after Paul's recovery. Felix however felt more and more distinctly that he loved the maiden in reality only from an artistic point of view. His fiery nature required a counterfoil, which would oppose a greater vivacity and capacity of contradiction than was to be met with in Erastus' tender hearted daughter. The daily scrimmages which he had with Frau Belier, in which like two children with locked hands they endeavored each to bring the other to its knees, developed his own inward strength rather than any quiet thoughtful conversation with the German maiden. He was wont to watch with artistic delight Lydia as sitting at her work she pondered over her past or her future. It was impossible to have gazed on a more lovely picture of a maiden mind buried in the sweet dream of the love of a young life. The brow wrapt in thought, the mouth puckered up as if seeking a kiss, the blooming cheeks, the full development of bust, on which nature had lavished its riches with a bounteous hand, formed a finished picture of beauty irresistible to the artist nature in Felix. He quietly brought out one day a lump of modelling clay, and whilst Lydia was sitting without any misgivings at her work near the window, and dreamily listening to the breathing of the patient, the young artist kneaded the plastic material and soon completed an exact portrait of the thoughtful maiden. He formed the base as the calix of a flower as he had seen in the antique busts in Rome and Florence. The scented calix out of which Klytia arose was intended as a symbol of the dreamy flower-life of young love, of the tender perfume full of misgivings of a pure woman's mind, whose life is in part the existence of a plant. Lydia became aware at last of what he was doing, as the young Maestro looked intently at her, and then stepping to one side appeared to be busy on some unusual piece of work. She arose and a look of maidenlike severity came over her face on beholding a too faithful representation of her charms. "Fie, how wrong," she blushingly exclaimed. But the artist begged her so touchingly to resume her seat and let him continue that she finally resigned herself. "What can I otherwise grant him," she thought sadly, "when the heart belongs to the other." The artist carefully examined each particular feature. "God never created anything more beautiful than thou art," he said. When he had finished he clapped his hands together, and repeated "splendid, splendid" half aloud. She now stepped up quietly to him. "What mean those leaves?"
"I have moulded thee as Goddess of flowers," he answered.
"As Wegewarte?" She looked up towards him with a sad smile. He however lightly kissed her pure forehead: "As Klytia turning towards her Sun-God." She held out her hand to him, and looked up gratefully into his eyes. He pressed it as if bidding her farewell. Without that a single word passed between them, they understood one another. Klytia was free, he himself had released her from her promise.
She now went oftener than ever to the couch of the sick brother, cooled his brow with damp cloths and bound up his wounds with the delicate, apt hands of a woman.
Thus passed away peacefully the last sunny days of autumn, leaving to all the inhabitants of the gable-house the precious impression, that there was even something beautiful in the stillness of a sick-room, in which no sounds were heard but the regular breathings of the patient, the ticking of the large Nuremberg clock in the ante-chamber, and the buzzing of the gnats on the diamond panes reflecting the sun. However little the relations of the various persons seemed to have changed outwardly, Erastus nevertheless felt the magnetic deviation which had taken place in Lydia. Wearied from many visits, he sat down one afternoon with his daughter near the chapel on the other side of the bridge to enjoy the last sunny hours of the fleeting year. The Heidelberg woods lay before them tinged with yellow, and their serrated lines blue and indistinct melted away as some old poetic saw in the autumn mist causing the mountains to appear higher than usual. Near to the bench on which they sat, the blue flower bloomed by the wayside and ever turned its calix to the sun. Lydia plucked one and pondered over the world of experiences she had lived through in the short time since Felix had related to her the fable out of Ovid. Her father looked steadily at her and said: "Hast thou broken thy bonds towards Felix?"
"Felix remains a Papist," she answered evasively. "He cannot fulfil the conditions which thou hast laid upon him."
"I release him from them," said Erastus. "Are we not all Papists since we have Olevianus as our Pope, execute heretics, and that Theologians assume to themselves not only the authority of Princes, but also that of heads of houses, and fathers of families? Hardly any trace is left of the freedom which Luther and Zwingli sought to introduce."
"Dost thou permit me then to marry a Catholic?"
"What right would I have to forbid? So often as I pass the square on which was spilt the blood of my friend, the very stones cry out to me, 'thou hypocrite, in what art thou better than the Caraffas?' The officium of the Calvinists has rendered me lenient towards index and inquisition."
"And wilt thou be equally lenient," asked Lydia timidly, "if I marry Paul?"
Erastus looked at her in amazement: "How? After that he plunged us all in this misery, can'st thou not sever thy heart from him?"
"Ask this flower why it follows the course of the sun," said Lydia, "it cannot do otherwise."
"But how can'st thou prefer the horrible Priest, this pale man broken down in health to the straightforward, happy young Maestro?"
"I know not," said the maiden thoughtfully. "This love has deeper roots than those of reason. In what does it consist? Merely in my love for him, in that I cannot tear myself away from him. Not because he is handsomer or wiser than others am I his, but only because I cannot live away from him, because he is my Sun, without whom I should wither away as does this flower in winter;" and she silently dried the tears which rose to her eyes.
"He has suffered too severely for our sakes," answered Erastus after a few moments of thought, "for me to say nay. It is God's decree, His will be done."
CHAPTER XV.
Slowly was the patient of the gable-house moving towards convalescence. His wounds still smarted, and any motion caused him pain, but he bore all his sufferings with the greatest composure, and to his brother's inquiry he answered with a grateful look: "Sta bene." Klytia also who continued to nurse him with a certain diffidence, he ever greeted with a look of deep gratitude. In the weak condition in which he now found himself all natural passion, force of character, and love of the artificial seemed to have left him; he was kinder and more simple than he had ever been before; fictitiousness, nonsense and bombast had fallen away from him. The brilliant personality of the Italian savant, which spreads a shimmer of eloquence over the most unimportant theme, and loves to express epigrammatically the most common place subject, had been replaced by a poor suffering man. He was no longer the primus omnium of the college at Venice whose mouth overflowed with wisdom. Rather was there something childlike in his helplessness. He modestly held back, although all interest was centred on him. His gratitude for any attention, his respect for Belier's and Erastus' learning, his unassuming attention caused him to resemble a mere boy. Now only could one perceive how young he really was. When Frau Belier passionately exclaimed at the sight of his wounds he meekly answered: "I wished to do the same to others, who were better than I, noble Lady, and whose sins were less clear of proof than mine." He took part in conversation only when directly questioned, but listened eagerly when Erastus or Belier discussed Church matters, or when Felix and the mistress of the house violently argued about nothing, whilst Lydia quietly glided through the room like a sunbeam and by her noiseless activity gave to the whole a tone of beauty and individual coloring. When Paul at last supported by Erastus and his brother was led to an armchair and thus enabled to join for hours the family circle, they all expected that his former originality and mental superiority would show itself once again. But he remained silent, gentle and as if apparently inwardly crushed. This resignation on the part of his brother finally appeared serious to Felix. It was something so utterly opposed to the fiery disposition of the young artist that he said to himself: "His limbs will be cured, of that Erastus is certain, but his nature is broken, like those of the few victims of the inquisition I saw in Rome, who were suffered to return to public life."
"I do not like to see thee so wise and genuine," he said one day to Paul, as the family were expending their wrath on the subject of some fresh molestation on the part of the Theologians, whilst Paul endeavored kindly and quietly to place their intentions in a better light. "It seems as if thou couldest no longer punish evil."
"That may be the case," answered the sick man. "I see no crime committed that I myself might not have committed. What should our failings teach us, but charity towards others?"
Klytia herself had become another person, since Paul had so retired within himself. Quiet and reserved she went her way. She seemed to be satisfied with being able to serve him, to provide for all things, but the joyous childish smile had left her face. Felix who was working at her marble bust, found, when she sat for him, a melancholy trait in her reverie, which had formerly not existed. "She looks like some young widow, who mournfully ponders over her departed joy. But I will soon rouse the foolish children out of their unbearable reserve and self-sacrifice." One day that he found his brother sitting alone near the window of his oaken-panelled room, gazing with longing look out of the diamond panes over the gables of the houses towards the Heiligenberg, as if counting each individual pine, which seemed to detach itself from the white clouds behind, the opportunity appeared favorable to the artist.
"Thou must be digging out a new philosophy, Paolo," he said laughing, "that thou gazest up for hours at the blue October sky."
"I see no necessity for one," replied Paul wearily. "Resignation is true philosophy and life itself teaches us that."
"Why must thou be resigned? Thou seemest to have made a pact with Lydia of mutual self-sacrifice."
A flaming color spread suddenly over the patient's pale face. "Why dost thou hide thyself behind the clouds, thou love-sick Apollo, and sufferest thy flower to mourn? Must I take her by the hand and lead her to thee?"
Paul made a motion of grief. "Thou would'st sacrifice thyself, my good Felix," he cried, "but how could I accept such a sacrifice?"
"Sacrifice," said the Maestro, merrily cocking his Raphael cap to one side. "We artists are terrible sinners. Since I have modelled the pure face, since I have caught the determined look on her lips and have spitted it in marble, like a butterfly stuck through with a pin, my heart has as much abandoned her as any other model with which I have succeeded, and it seems to me as if I had almost too much of the dear child. I dream of a less gentle, less pliant being, allotted to me by heaven, a Neapolitan woman with hooked nose, black eyes, and sharp claws at the end of her forepaws. In a word I will paint Lydia on a church banner for the Scalzi, but will as soon marry her as the Madonna. I want a wife with whom I can quarrel."
Paul shook his head sadly: "Even if that were the case, how can one tainted by suspicion, a racked cripple, a walking corpse stretch out his arms towards this young sweet life? It would indeed be a crime."
At that minute a young pale head bowed down over him, fresh warm lips were fastened on his pale mouth. "I will never nurse any but this patient," she said in a low trembling voice.
"Lydia," cried Paolo in his delight. "Thou art willing to bind thy happy destiny to that of a cripple?"
"I shall make him once more as healthy and frolicsome as the squirrel on the tops of the trees," joyously laughed Klytia. A sunbeam of joy passed over the face of the pale man. The artist retired however to his studio, turned the marble bust with its face to the wall, and began assiduously to work at the façade of Herr Belier's future house.
"Hast thou in truth chosen the Papist, the stranger as the companion of thy life-time?" asked Erastus with a grave shake of the head, as Klytia with her arm wound round Paul announced her determination to her father.
"His land shall be my land and his God shall be my God," replied Klytia with an inward joy, which Erastus knew he could not oppose.
"I did not wish to mix the things of this world with those of another," now said Paul modestly, "otherwise I should have told you that I cannot return to the old Communion. Before this I used to rage against your church, which broke down the altars, and laid waste the sacred places; but you have one great advantage over us, you have no slaves. Moreover dogma has no longer for me the same importance that it used to have. Each of us strove after the right doctrine, but who can tell in this day of shattering of opinions and ideas what the right doctrine may be? You persecuted the Baptists and Arians owing to true principles. The Calvinists persecuted you, the Palatines hate both Zwingliites and Lutherans. I however hated all Baptists, Zwingliites, Lutherans and Calvinists. We have all steeped our hands in blood in honor of that God who said to us: 'thou shalt not kill.' If we continue in this way, soon in this beauteous land the groans of the tortured and the blood of the slain will cry to heaven as in the Netherlands and in France, and what that may mean, is only known to one who may have experienced it on his own body. One must have looked the most terrible death in the face, to be convinced, how small in reality is the belief for the which we are ready to die. As lately I was pondering over in my prison: Who can indeed possess a certain and sure promise of the Spirit, that his doctrine is of God, where then in the ocean of deceit is the safe rock on which we may take a firm foothold? The words of a heretic whom I formerly deeply despised came uppermost to me. That Baptist whom you yourself know. 'The Spirit,' he cried once to me, 'exists not outwardly in dogma and in cultus, but only in the life. Then only does it appear in that one sees, feels and hears it. We know more certainly the right that should be done, than the right that should be taught. Therefore true belief is this, that you do the will of God, not that you revolve principles of dogma concerning things invisible which are not of man but of God.' At that time I covered my ears with my hands, so as not to hear such blasphemous arguments, but they came back to me in the stillness of the prison. When the witch acknowledged that she had never seen the devil, for the which we burnt her, the idea stirred me to the roots of my heart, for what uncertainties we often commit a certain wrong. All our errors arise from our thinking too much of God's honor, too little of his law, speak too much of the invisible world, too little of the visible. We were pious because we murdered for the sake of another world; we were pleasing in God's sight because for the other world we lied, deceived and led men astray, and because we made our love of power and right the affair of the Deity, all our other sins should therefore be pardoned. Our care for that unknown world has led us to despise this visible one. To become angels in heaven, we were ravening wolves on earth. Only when I thought over the word which the heretic had called out to me: 'The spirit is nowhere visible but in the life,' then only did the scales fall from my eyes, and I determined to commit the doctrines of God into God's own hands, and to do in this life, what he had plainly revealed to me in heart and by word."
Erastus returned no answer, as Herr Belier came in with Xylander who wished to greet Erastus. After a time they were joined by Felix, who within the last few days had looked less cheerful than usual. "Our friend would leave us," said the Huguenot. "He goes first to Innsbruck to visit Master Colins and then returns to Naples. In vain I have begged him to renounce papistry; he declares that he will not cut himself off from his people, and that art-loving Italy will never raise itself to our worship of God in Spirit and in Truth."
"You are right," said Erastus kindly. "We cannot make use of the Papal Church as it now is and the Italians cannot use our churches as they now are. It is sufficient for us to think out our thoughts and to act accordingly, the Italians wish them represented before them sensuously. Perhaps the time may come when this dissonance solves itself into a higher harmony, as Lydia once said, in which the white surplices and black gowns will be as much things of the past as are to-day Garizim und Moriah, or the disputes of the Levites and Samaritans, nevertheless I fear that the day is much further off than Lydia thinks. But we have indeed the promises of a time, when there will be no temple and no priest and I believe that the world will give a sigh of relief when the last Theologian has been buried." "I should myself like to be standing by that grave," said Xylander vivaciously. "I would place with this humanitarian all the implements with which he worked, his symbolical books, bishops' mitres, pitch torches, the pears of torture, and a bit of Sylvan's bloody shirt which was wickedly sent to me on the day after the poor man's death. They would trumpet in the next world that Kalchas and Teiresias, Augurs and Haruspices were soft-hearted fellows in comparison with those who came after them. When I consider the amount of blood that has been shed since the days of Constantine to the present time, I wish that a Church had never existed!" "No," replied Erastus, "it was not my meaning that we should overthrow the Church because the priests do not satisfy us. That would be like tearing down a house, because the owner was not popular. We must only place it in other hands, rule it in a different manner, and for this reform, which is so necessary, I know of no better fundamental doctrine than that, which Magister Paul intends to preach for the future, that the Spirit exists only outwardly in one way, and that is in the Life."
"I hope sincerely," said Felix turning to his brother, "that thou are not serious in wishing to spend thy days in misery in this land of fogs, and in cold churches without music, to waste thy life full of hope in fruitless preachings unaided by art? No, come with me. Thou art an Italian and can'st not live without the aesthetic, and if thou remainest, wilt soon enough have to sing out the super flumina Babylonis."
"No Felix," said Paul in a determined tone. "As the choice lies open to me: rather no music, no pictures, not even laurel hedges and gardens of the Hesperides, than any return to the old pool of sulphur."
"And dost thou really wish to die a Calvinistic preacher?"
Paul was silent for a while, then modestly answered: "The moment I regained my consciousness I said daily to myself: Away with the cowl. A profession which requires us to appear better than other men, easily renders us much worse. Moreover I felt, that after the miseries which I have survived, many a temptation is left behind--and finally what otherwise should I become, dost thou think?"
"Teacher, Magister, Doctor," enumerated the artist quickly.
"I have experienced too much that is serious to be anything else than a preacher. Shall I mend up the mutilated verses of old poets? or tinker together the fragments of some forgotten sophist? or pile up some other learned dung-heap? Whosoever has experienced what I have, can no longer choose the embellishments of life as the centre of his existence. My thoughts cleave to the core of life, bitter as it may be; that will I make the substance of my labours. I will beg the Kurfürst to appoint me to some quiet parish, hidden away in the furthermost wooded valley of his dominions. There I will teach children to fold their little hands, advise parents how to guard their children's hearts, strengthen husbands and wives in their good intentions, sustain the weak, guide the erring into the ways of peace. And if I have watched over the smallest congregation in this land like a good shepherd, so that it returns after my preaching happier and better qualified to the work and burden of life, finding itself more reconciled and meek under trials, comforted in all sorrow, then I will have a fuller certainty that my life has not been lived in vain, than if boys were reading my edition of the poets, or doctors naming a dogma after me. I do not wish to be renowned but forgotten. The children and the neighbours only will know of me, and I feel certain that my bride longs for such a modest existence."
Klytia leant tenderly over him and gazed into his eyes, Felix alone did not seem to approve that the end of such a great beginning should be a hidden Hyperborean village. The Magister however leant his hand affectionately on his brother's shoulder and said: "My good Felix, be assured that the Parson Paul will be a happier man than ever the Magister Laurenzano was, and the fame of our noble race may be safely entrusted to thy artistic hands."
"See the creation of our new Michel Angelo," cried Herr Belier, unfolding a plan of the new house which was to replace the old gable house on the market. A shout of delight escaped them all.
"How grandly story is piled on story," said Erastus, "up to the proud gable, which shows the world the armour in the which our valiant friend fought so stoutly. And here is the shield of the Beliers and the faithful portrait of our host."
"Mon Dieu!" cried the little woman, "there is even my poor parrot on my wrist. The sacrificial lamb which redeemed the blood from our house."
"Here, Herr Belier," said the delighted Felix, "have I left an empty frieze for you to add in your device."
"Be that the artist's part," replied the chivalrous Huguenot. Felix bent his head thoughtfully and casting a loving look at Klytia, mindful of his brother's hard won fortune, he gaily seized the pencil and wrote in large letters: "Perstat invicta Venus!"