Klytia Part 13

LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON.

CROWN BUILDINGS, 188, FLEET STREET.

PARIS: C. REINWALD, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PeRES.

KLYTIA.

CHAPTER I.

Disturbed by the heavy fall of the young maiden the bats flew out of the dark cellar and whirred wildly around. Toads crept from out of the swampy rain-sodden ground and crawled up the damp wall towards the opening. The terrified mice ran hither and thither. The moon had reached its highest point, and cast its cold rays through the square aperture on the humid wall. A violent pain in her foot aroused Lydia from the faint, into which she had fallen, and in the which she knew not how long she had lain. When she endeavored to stand up, she became aware that her foot was broken. Only half conscious of her position, she looked up through the shaft of the cellar, at the starry heaven above. The Lord on whom she had called for aid had saved her from a hideous fate. "He will not suffer me to perish here," she said with the patience of a person afflicted with a serious illness. But the sight was terrible which the beams of the Moon now falling straight disclosed to her, as her eyes became more and more accustomed to the darkness.

Dozens of bats flew noiselessly about in the dark. Horrible toads crawled along the wet walls. A rat ran across her face, so that she had to start up in spite of her pain to frighten the animal away. Overhead, all was still. Lydia reflected that her shouts would attract no one to her, except perhaps her pursuers. She therefore determined to husband her strength till dawn. She would then certainly succeed in making herself heard by some of the children picking berries, or by some of the numerous laborers. Anxiously did she gaze upwards towards the opening to see whether the cold light of the moon was not giving way to the warmer beams of the sun. Her back hurt her from having fallen against stones, the stinging pain in her foot caused her to sob, but she believed that she would be saved, and considered this as a punishment for the guilt which she had been induced to commit. How thankful she felt that her father was absent and therefore not anxious about her. Thus thinking she fell asleep.

She woke, aroused by a stone which fell from above on her wounded foot.

"Nothing stirs," she heard a boy's voice say. "I am here," cried Lydia in terror lest her deliverers should depart. "G.o.d be praised, young lady," cried a man's voice, "we heard no sound and feared our search was vain. Have you strength enough, to let yourself be pulled up by a rope."

"I doubt it. My foot is broken and my back is wounded."

"Then must we see if the ladder is long enough."

"But you promise to do me no harm?"

"Don't you know me, young Maiden, the Miller Werner from the Kreuzgrund, behind Ziegelhausen."

"Ah, is it you Father Werner," said she crying for joy. "How did you find out where I was?"

"The wretches who hunted you down, said, you disappeared from them here as if the earth had swallowed you up, so we could easily imagine where you were. The scoundrels would have quietly let you perish."

"Yes, it was terrible," said Lydia, "but G.o.d punished me for my sins."

The ladder was now let down through the opening, and carefully did the brave old man avoid touching Lydia. Then he himself climbed down holding a burning rosin torch. "A filthy hole, this old cellar," he murmured. "How the bats fly the light. Yes, light is horrible to you, you children of darkness." Carefully did he raise Lydia, who like a child wound her arms round his neck. Cautiously did he climb the ladder to the world above, where he laid her down on the soft turf. The question now was how to carry the sick child, who lay pale and faint on the ground, to the high road beneath. The Miller thought at first of using the ladder as a stretcher, and carrying her down on that. But the ladder was small and hard. To fetch a stretcher would have taken too much time and attracted attention. Lydia also begged urgently that he would hurry. Nothing remained but for the old man to carry her down in his arms, for which purpose he bound her to himself with the boy's girdle. The latter ran down to the village to have a covered cart in readiness below, whilst the father climbed cautiously down the stony footpath leading to the road. Lydia lay still, on the back of the miller, with her arms around his neck, while he sought the most lonely path through wood and vineyard. "The lost sheep," he thought, "torn even to bleeding by thorns and its wool remained sticking to the hedges. But when the shepherd finds it again, he takes it on his back with joy." And he looked at the pretty white hands clasped so touchingly under his p.r.i.c.kly chin. The sweet burden lay warm on his back, and the maiden's delicate cheek rested on his shoulder. Then the old gray-beard began to lose his head. It seemed to him whilst looking at those white hands, as if an evil voice close to him said: "Thy Martha never had such hands."

"What does that matter to thee, old sinner," he answered the tempter bravely. "Hast thou always lived among the purer brethren, thou would'st not care in thy older days to keep company with the coa.r.s.er."

"To be waited upon by such hands, would nevertheless be pleasant,"

continued the first voice.

"Nevertheless thou hast still thy old wife," answered he gruffly.

"Have not Hetzer, Rottmann and other prophets taught, that when a brother felt, he had not found his suitable spiritual bride, he might loose himself from the older bond and enter into a new marriage."

"Let the disciples of Judas teach. Their end was like his. Old Martha entered the Baptist Communion with me and has ever been a true wife."

"Then take two wives, as permitted by the prophets of Munster. Had not the holy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Lamech, Gideon, and David more than one wife, why not thou also? It is true that the German princes forbade this to the brethren at Munster, but the Landgraf himself, who persecuted them with fire and sword, followed their example later on."

"Peace Satan," rejoined the old man. "Scripture is opposed to polygamy in spite of Abraham and Philip of Hessen. G.o.d gave Adam only one Eva.

He created them male and female, not one male and two females. It is also said, 'and they two shall be one flesh,' and not three or four.

But verily Martha is now nothing but skin and bones," he thought sadly and sighed.

"You must find me very heavy, good father?" said Lydia in a low tone.

"No," he answered shortly. Then he became conscious that he had better keep up a conversation with his _protegee_ than with the wicked Satan who would tempt him from the right path, and he told her how his son had informed him of the appointment made by Laurenzano, and how the rest had come to pa.s.s. Lydia began to weep. "So you know everything, and will certainly consider me very wicked."

"We are all but flesh and blood," said the Miller good-naturedly. "Our souls will stumble so long as they go about on two legs, and each bears within himself a rock of offence."

"I thank you father, for not punis.h.i.+ng me more severely."

"That is not my office," replied the Baptist. "I have enough to punish in myself."

"Ah, you are good, but I dare not think what others will think of me."

"People must be allowed to talk, as geese cannot," rejoined the Miller.

"Make your peace with G.o.d and then be satisfied. Look there is George with the cart."

Joyfully cracking his whip, stood the little devil of the previous night close to his horse. "Now we shall lay you down gently in the waggon and then close the linen curtains." Getting her down was only managed with much pain and difficulty; then the well known Miller drove back unquestioned through the town to the portal of the Otto Heinrich building. The careful Barbara had seen the cart crossing the drawbridge and was immediately at hand. The Miller gave her no information. The young lady had hurt her foot falling was all he said, and carefully was she carried up the steps. Barbara by the Miller's advice wrapped the leg in wet cloths, till the father at his return at mid-day could apply a more surgically correct bandage. The brave Baptist had quietly withdrawn to escape being thanked. The father himself forbade his feverish child to talk, and appeared to be quite contented with the short account given by Klytia. It was sufficient for him that the cure proceeded satisfactorily, and the old Barbara scolded about the open turnip-pit in which more than one person had twisted his foot. When Erastus however asked later on for a more detailed account, he was surprised at his daughter's request to be allowed not to mention the cause of her accident. He shook his head, without however pressing his inquiries. "She must have come to grief through the fault of another,"

he thought, and was at last glad that she spared him any fresh troubles, as his own business began to demand more attention.

Nothing was heard of Magister Laurenzano in Heidelberg, except that he asked for leave of absence till the re-opening of the College, and wished especially to be relieved from his office of preacher at the Stift.

In the bright town of Speyer with its own independent Bishopric, the throng composing the parliament was so numerous that any individual man was soon lost to sight. Any person who however might have entered Speyer cathedral at the hour of Vespers on the day on which Lydia was rescued, might have seen a young man clothed in black kneeling in the most abject manner before one of the confessional boxes most concealed in the gloom. His confession was at an end and the priest was earnestly addressing him. A woman kneeling close by heard the words: "Only a long discipline, my Son, can restore the equilibrium and order of thy disturbed conscience." From that time onwards for several weeks the same stranger might be noticed entering the cathedral daily at daybreak and at sundown and going down to the dark crypt under the chancel.

Thence he disappeared in a side chapel set aside for the use of the clergy of the chapter. "Where can Laurenzano be spending his holiday?"

asked the philosopher Pithopous at the round table in the Hirsch, who loved a rational audience.

"His brother says," replied Erastus, "that he is in Speyer, but I have not been able to hear a word about him from gentlemen who are there in the Kurfurst's suite, although I made all due inquiries."

"Very probably," answered Pithopous, who liked Laurenzano for the interest he felt in scholastic discussions. "In the bustle which now goes on in that town, an individual is easily lost."

CHAPTER II.

When Klytia was sufficiently restored to health to be able to sit up with outstretched foot on a chair specially constructed by her father, the visits of her friends who where most anxious to hear all the details of the accident began, thereby greatly tormenting the poor child. Frau Belier especially wished to know so exactly how it all came to pa.s.s that finally nothing was left for Lydia but to avail herself of Barbara's device of the open turnip-pit. Happily private affairs remained still uppermost in the minds of these busy women and maidens, and Lydia was endued with sufficient feminine cunning to parry a disagreeable question by referring to another topic. "I am nothing but a false serpent," she used to say reproachfully to herself, "and repay all this love with deceit." She received more visits than she cared for,--only one remained away, one whom she so much feared, one for whom she so much longed. What could have prevented Paolo from coming to the very place chosen by himself? What prevented him even now from at all events asking her father about the health of his pupil? Had the miller not confirmed the fact that the note had been sent by Laurenzano, she would have preferred to think, that her rivals at the Stift had been making game of her, but after what the old Werner had told her she was forced to believe in Paolo's guilt. "He has no heart," she murmured, "otherwise he would have been here long ago." The less the news that could be obtained of him, the more did his conduct appear inconceivable to her. Had he quitted the town forever, in which he had caused so much misery? In that case he would never return! A feeling of horror crept over her at such a thought. Then she heard in the lofty echoing pa.s.sage a well known elastic step and the voice of her father as he quietly approached. Erastus' head appeared at the door. "My child, Herr Laurenzano wishes to pay thee a visit. Remain lying down so that thy foot may not suffer." Lydia turned first pale and then red. At that moment she saw the figure of the architect, and with the disappointment her composure returned. Smilingly did she stretch out a small white hand to the Maestro. After that the handsome dark-eyed Italian had congratulated her gracefully on her recovery, he told her, that owing to the state of her health he had not up to the present time occupied himself with the repairs necessary to be made on the row of windows of Erastus' apartments. If she permitted it he would now begin the work.

Lydia thanked him for his kind consideration. The work would not disturb her in any way; she would retire to the back rooms. The architect looked as childishly sad at her, as would a boy to whom a long wished for pleasure had been denied.--That she should not deny herself the bright suns.h.i.+ne so necessary to every sick person, was the very cause of his visit, he began with hesitating voice and maidenlike blush. It would be utterly impossible for him to undertake the work with any comfort and happiness if he had hourly to reproach himself with having delayed her convalescence. He would in that case prefer leaving the windows as they were, Erastus smilingly sided with him; in short Lydia had to capitulate and agreed neither to leave the room, nor to shut out the health-bringing pure air. Thus it happened that the merry Maestro appeared daily on the scaffold and seized every opportunity of coming to Lydia's window. He used then to tell her about the work, to complain of the laziness of German workmen who wasted half the day in eating, drinking and sleeping, and to praise the frugality and diligence of his Italian countrymen. Smilingly did the maiden bending over her work listen to the complaints of the Neapolitan, whose great delight seemed to consist in talking. As the neighbours however took to looking up at them, she reminded him half-seriously that he was no diligent Italian. "You say that a German eats and drinks as much as ten Italians, but it seems to me that an Italian chatters as much as twenty Germans. Now let me see for once how industrious you can be."

Felix retired feeling rather ashamed, whilst she could not help thinking how much the brothers resembled each other. "I am afraid of the Magister," she thought smiling, "and yet long to see him. I am amused at the architect and yet dismiss him from me. Thou foolish heart to prefer sorrow to joy."

One morning the Maestro mentioned his brother to her. He was staying with the Bishop at Speyer where he had some friends. It was then as she feared. He had become Brother Paulus once more and returned to the Jesuits. Sad, and with beating heart did she stoop over her sewing whilst two large tears fell on her work. The Maestro pretended not to perceive this, but whilst angry with Paul on account of these tears, he himself became suddenly aware of how his own heart yearned towards this beauteous fair maiden.

Klytia herself could no longer be in doubt, that the worthy Maestro, whom she preferred to any one after Paul, earnestly sought her love, but her heart was filled with grief for him whom now she must reckon among the dead. Had he not abandoned her insultingly to her fate, disgraced her in her own eyes, was he not continuing on his own crooked dark paths, and had he not ceased to love her if indeed he had ever done so? What would she have given, not to have been daily reminded of him by his brother, and yet she was never so attentive, as when the latter told her of his youthful days in Naples, how he, Paul, and their little sister had played at ball with the golden fruit of the orange groves, sought for colored sh.e.l.ls on the sh.o.r.e, hidden themselves in the hollow trunks of olive trees, looked for antique bits and marble splinters among the laurels and mountain-shrubs; of their adventures with huge earthworms, small snakes, scorpions and b.u.t.terflies; then she saw standing out so distinctly before her the dark elder and the yet more swarthy younger brother, that she felt for them as a sister, and in her dreams she often imagined herself to be that deceased sister of the Laurenzanos. "Take the brown one, the dark one will render thee unhappy," had said the old witch, and Lydia had become superst.i.tious since that terrible evening at the cross-roads on the Holtermann. The magic words of the old woman seemed to be too true. The maiden's heart could not free itself from the demoniacal priest, and it remained after Paul's faithless flight, in the trusty brother's power. Quite involuntarily, in her dreams, these innermost thoughts, still unknown to herself a.s.sumed expression.

Above the door of the Ruprecht building where dwelt Felix, might be seen a beauteous piece of artistic work of old German architecture, before which Lydia had as a child often stood in delighted wonderment.

Two lovely angels' heads mutually o'ershadowed by each other's little wings; holding in brotherly affection within a wreath of roses, a pair of compa.s.ses, the sign of the masons. The Builder's guild had evidently thus intended to go down to posterity. The common people however related, that these two lovely twins had been the delight of the architect who had built the Schloss. To have them continually at his side he had taken them up on the scaffold, rejoicing in his two fresh-looking courageous boys. One day however one of them stumbled and dragged the other down with him. The architect became almost deranged, so that the building did not proceed. Instead of looking after the work, the sorrowful father daily made a wreath which he adorned with white roses and carried to the cemetery near the Peter's Church where were buried his darlings. The Emperor Ruprecht however became angry at the length of time the building continued, and ordered the Priest, who had buried the children to urge on the architect. He answered that all was ready, but that in his grief he could not conceive a proper ornament for the gateway. The Priest exhorted and consoled him to the best of his ability; the same night the twins appeared as bright angels to the father bringing back with them the wreath of roses which he had laid that morning on their grave. When the architect was roused the next morning by the light of the rising Sun, he thought of his dream, it seemed to him that the perfume of the roses still filled his room, and on rising, behold there lay the wreath fresh and fragrant, which he had the previous morning laid on the grave of his little ones, and which he had seen withered the evening before, but the white roses had turned to red. It was immediately plain to the architect how he should decorate the gate-way. He chiselled his children as angels as they had appeared to him, bearing a rose-wreath, and in the middle he placed a pair of compa.s.ses, the symbol of an art, to which he now bade a lasting farewell. On St. John's day 1408, the key-stone of the gate-way was fixed in, and the Emperor Ruprecht himself spoke the dedicatory oration. When he wished however to return his imperial thanks to the workmen, the architect had disappeared. Whilst all the bells were pealing loudly and filling the Neckar valley with their deep notes, the Master whom they were honoring, trod along the Michaelspath over the mountains to the monastery on the Heiligenberg. He became a monk and gazed from his cell at the tower, reared over the graves of his darling children, till his two boys once more appeared to him, crowned him with roses and bore away his soul into Abraham's bosom. This was the story as told to Lydia by her nurse, and when she thought of angels, the beauteous bearers of the wreath over the gate-way before which she daily pa.s.sed always presented themselves to her memory. None of the n.o.ble statues wrought by Master Colins on the magnificent Otto Heinrich building had ever come near the impression made by these angels' heads.