THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH
CHARLES READE
“The Cloister and the Hearth” is a novel which, like “Ivanhoe” and “Romola,” illustrates the fact that it is occasionally possible for a novelist to deal with distant scenes and times long past almost as effectively as with immediate surroundings. In such cases the general groundwork of human nature is ever present, and in matters of detail the imagination supplies the place of accurate knowledge, while the style and the thoughts acquire added dignity by being transported from the commonplace.
This work is unlike most of the other novels of Charles Reade, and is of a higher quality. The dignity of style, however, is by no means uniformly sustained. There are many defects in the book, and very glaring ones. I read it for a long time before its full power and beauty dawned upon me. There is in places an artificial conciseness and often an apparent straining for effect which is unpleasant. There are instances of great carelessness of construction, and colloquialisms which resemble very closely modern slang. As the tale deals with a remote period, the diction is generally archaic; yet the archaism consists not so much in the style as in the use of obsolete English words, such as “buss me,” “hosen,” “shoon,” “cowen,” etc., which seem inappropriate since the conversation was necessarily in another language. Moreover, these archaisms are not consistently carried out in all places. Many of the jokes and saws are stilted, and some of the poetical quotations are lugged headforemost into places where they do not belong. The main plot is often stifled by the abundance of incidents, and there is an appearance of mechanism in the sudden alternations of hope and fear, success and failure, which chase each other in rapid succession through the pages. There are false notes here and there; language is used and events described which are in atrociously bad taste; incidents are told in a sensational way worthy of yellow journalism; and in places you have the conviction that the characters would not naturally do the things described. Yet, with all these defects, the story of the love of Gerard Eliassoen and Margaret Brandt is full of deep human interest, and in many places the tale is one of singular beauty.
Elias, a small tradesman of Tergou, and Catherine, his wife, have many children, and to provide for them the utmost economy is necessary. One of the sons, Gerard, an illuminator of manuscripts, is destined for the clergy. He becomes a competitor for two of the prizes offered by Philip the Good of Burgundy for the best painting and writing on vellum. On his way to the competition at Rotterdam he falls in with an old man, Peter Brandt, a so-called magician, and his daughter Margaret; and when he wins a prize, and when in addition the Princess Marie has promised him a benefice, he has fallen so deeply in love with Margaret that “the hours they spent together were the hours they lived; the rest they counted and underwent.”
His parents oppose the marriage, and the burgomaster, Ghysbrecht Van Swieten, has strong personal reasons for preventing it. Gerard and Margaret are betrothed, and have signed their marriage lines in the presence of witnesses, so that the law holds them for man and wife; but twice when they appear at the altar the wedding is interrupted, and the second time Gerard is imprisoned in the tower of the Stadthouse, from which he escapes by the device and aid of Margaret. He is pursued by Ghysbrecht and his retainers, and after many hairbreadth escapes, in which Margaret repeatedly rescues him, he flees from Holland and goes on foot to Rome, where he intends to pursue his art, and then return to claim his bride. The liveliest descriptions are given of his adventures on the way—of the German inns, of the companion who accompanies him, Denys the Burgundian soldier, a well drawn character, garrulous, brave, generous, and debonair, whose constant formula of encouragement is “Courage, l’ami, le diable est mort!” and whose foible, like that of many of his compatriots, is a fondness for women. There is a blood-curdling description of a combat with a bear, whose cub they have stolen; of a supper under a gibbet; of a pedantic doctor, who is burned by the irons with which he had proposed to cauterize Gerard. In places the story seems almost like some mediæval Baedeker, filled with accounts of the sights to be seen and of the customs of the people, as well as with tales of the carousals of the monks in the convents. The two companions pass into Burgundy, and Burgundian manners are vividly contrasted with those of Germany. They betake themselves to an inn, where the landlord and six confederates conspire to murder them; but after a bloody struggle, with marvelous incidents and prodigies of daring, they are rescued, and their assailants are duly hanged or broken on the wheel. But now the two friends are separated; Denys is impressed by a band of soldiers, and Gerard is left alone, to be robbed by highwaymen.
At home, in the meantime, there is a conspiracy between the burgomaster and two brothers of Gerard, who seek to prevent his marriage, and a false letter is sent to him at Rome telling him Margaret is dead.
A graphic picture is drawn of his despair, of his plunging madly into a reckless and wicked life, to drown his grief. He resolves upon suicide, but he is rescued from the Tiber and awakens to consciousness in a convent, where, filled with penitence, he embraces the monastic life, and becomes a preacher of great power. And now come alternating chapters, picturing Gerard in the cloister and on his pilgrimages, and Margaret, with her child, by the hearth at home.
Finally, on a pilgrimage to England, Gerard passes through Rotterdam, and preaches with great eloquence in the convent church. Margaret is present. The chapters are of great power which portray the recognition of the lovers, the discovery of the false letter, and the curse launched by Gerard upon his two brothers who had planned it. But soon Gerard disappears, and becomes an anchorite in a cave not far away. There is a superb description of the struggles of his soul; of the temptations that beset him; of his “turning to gloomy madness”; of his dreams, in which the face of Margaret comes to him irradiated with sunshine, while she blushes and casts on him looks of ineffable tenderness, murmuring, “Gerard, be whose thou wilt by day, but at night, be mine!”; of his terrible efforts to subdue the body, and of his spiritual conquest. But Margaret has discovered the anchorite in his retreat, where she has identified him by a mark upon the finger which he stretches forth from the small window of his cave to feed the birds; and on one occasion, as he returns to his hermitage, which he leaves only in the night, he finds that Margaret is there. He believes she is an evil spirit sent to tempt him; he seeks to exorcise her, and a dreadful scene ensues, as she tries to lead him away from his foul den. They part in fury, but she has left behind her sleeping boy, who, when he wakes, by his innocent prattle wins the heart of the monk, who is quite unconscious that the child is his own. Margaret comes upon them, and beseeches her husband to take courage now that God has sent the boy to comfort him for what he has lost in her, and “that is not so very much, for the better part of love shall never cool.” Eloquent is the pleading by which at last she wins him to go to Gouda Manse, which she has already prepared for his coming, and to care for the flock over which he had been appointed vicar.
The remainder of the story deals with the quiet life of Gerard in the Manse, and of Margaret,—still separated by the church and by their own consciences, but united by a living pledge of affection. At last she is taken down with the plague, and the final scene between the two is pathetic and beautiful to the last degree. Gerard can not survive her; he ends his days in a convent near the Manse; and when he confesses to the stern Father Jerome, he says:
“She was my good angel; she sustained me in my duty and charity; her face encouraged me in the pulpit; her lips soothed me under ingratitude. She intertwined herself with all that was good in my life; and after leaning on her so long, I could not go on alone. And, dear Jerome, believe me, I am no rebel against heaven. It is God’s will to release me. When they threw the earth upon her poor coffin, something snapped within my bosom here that mended may not be. I heard it and I felt it.... He in whose hands are the issues of life and death gave me that minute the great summons; ’twas some cord of life snapped in me. He is very pitiful. I should have lived unhappy; but He said, ‘No; enough is done, enough is suffered; poor, feeble, loving servant, thy shortcomings are forgiven, thy sorrows touch their end; come thou to thy rest!’”
The child that survived them was known as the great scholar of mediæval times, Erasmus; for the foundation of the story is laid in historic fact. The author, to use his own simile, has turned the epitome into a narrative, and the skeleton into a human figure.
There are many passages in the book that are vivid and beautiful. For instance, a fine description is given of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy:
“He could fight as well as any king going; and he could lie as well as any, except the King of France. He was a mighty hunter, and could read and write. His tastes were wide and ardent. He loved jewels like a woman, and gorgeous apparel. He dearly loved maids of honor, and indeed paintings generally, in proof of which he ennobled Jan Van Eyck. He had also a rage for giants, dwarfs, and Turks. These last stood ever planted about him, turbaned, and blazing with jewels. His agents inveigled them from Istamboul with fair promises; but, the moment he had got them, he baptized them by brute force in a large tub, and, this done, let them squat with their faces towards Mecca, and invoke Mahound as much as they pleased, laughing in his sleeve at their simplicity in fancying they were still infidels. He had lions in cages, and fleet leopards trained by Orientals to run down hares and deer. In short, he relished all rarities, except the humdrum virtues. For anything singularly pretty, or diabolically ugly, this was your customer. The best of him was, he was open-handed to the poor; and the next best was, he fostered the arts in earnest, whereof he now gave a signal proof.”
Listen to the following description of a Mystery:
“In this representation divine personages, too sacred for me to name here, came clumsily down from heaven to talk sophistry with the cardinal Virtues, the nine Muses, and the seven deadly Sins, all present in human shape, and not unlike one another. To enliven which weary stuff, in rattled the Prince of the Powers of the Air, and an imp that kept molesting him and buffeting him with a bladder, at each thwack of which the crowd were in ecstasies. When the Vices had uttered good store of obscenity and the Virtues twaddle, the celestials, including the nine Muses, went gingerly back to heaven one by one; for there was but one cloud; and two artisans worked it up with its supernatural freight, and worked it down with a winch, in full sight of the audience. These disposed of, the bottomless pit opened and flamed in the centre of the stage; the carpenters and Virtues shoved the Vices in, and the Virtues and Beelzebub and his tormentor danced merrily round the place of eternal torture to the fife and tabor.”
One of the stories told in this novel seems too good to have been wholly an invention of the novelist. It is the story of the poor curé who was summoned before his bishop for demanding the burial fees in advance whenever he baptized a child. His excuse to the bishop was:
“I have been curé of that parish seven years, and fifty children have I baptized, and buried not five. At first I used to say, ‘Heaven be praised, the air of this village is main healthy,’ but on searching the register book I found ’twas always so, and on probing the matter it came out that of those born at Domfont, all but here and there one did go and get hanged at Aix. But this was to defraud not their curé only, but the entire church of their dues; since pendards pay no funeral fees, being buried in air.”