Ekkehard Volume Ii Part 6

"If one therefore examines the behaviour of my antagonist of St. Gall, one feels tempted to believe, that he had once invaded the garden of some wise man; from one of whose hot-beds he had stolen a radish, which had discomposed his stomach and increased his gall. Let everybody therefore keep a sharp look-out on his garden. Evil communications, corrupt good manners.

"Yet it is possible also, that he could not have done otherwise; for having perchance rummaged the whole day long, in the remotest folds of his cowl, to find something wherewith to regale the stranger guest, and not finding anything else, but cunning and malice, he let his guest taste a bit of that. Bad men have evil possessions.

"With his behaviour, his outward appearance,--which we did not fail carefully to investigate,--was in strict harmony. His countenance bore a pale l.u.s.tre, like bad metal, used for the adulteration of the genuine; his hair was crimped; his hood finer and daintier than necessary, and his shoes of light make,--so that all the signs of vanity were found on him, which were a vexation in the eyes of St.

Hieronymus, when he wrote: 'To my great regret, there are some of the clergy in my parish, who are very anxious for their garments to be well scented and their nails well polished; who anoint their curled hair with precious ointments, and who wear dainty, embroidered shoes. Such garments, however, are scarcely fitted for a dandy and bridegroom, let alone for one of the Lord's elected.'

"Further I have reflected, whether the sound of his own name, was not in harmony with his actions likewise. And what now? Ekkhard, or Akhar, was his name,--as if already at his baptism, by dint of a prophetic providence, he had been stigmatized with the name of a malefactor; for who does not know of that Akhar who appropriated to himself a purple mantle, as well as two hundred bags of silver, and a golden wedge, out of the booty at Jericho, so that Joshuah, had him led out into a remote valley, where he was stoned to death, by all Israel; and all he possessed was given up to the flames?--Of such a man his namesake of St. Gall, has shown himself to be a worthy successor; for he who disregards the laws of politeness and good breeding, acts as badly as a thief. He purloins the gold of true wisdom.

"If it were permitted to believe in the transmigration of souls, such as Pythagoras has taught, it would be beyond all doubt, that the soul of the Hebrew Akhar, had entered the frame of this Ekkehard, and in this case one ought to pity it, as it were better to dwell in the body of a fox even, than in that of a crafty and cunning monk. All this which I have said until now, has been said without any personal hatred.

My hatred is directed only against the man's inherent wickedness.

Consequently I only detest an attribute of his and not the substance itself, which we are bound to honour, as G.o.d's likeness, according to Scripture.

"Please to observe now," continued Gunzo in the second part of his book, "how insanely my enemy has acted against the benefits of science and knowledge. More than a hundred written volumes, had I brought with me, over the Alps; weapons of peace, such as Marcia.n.u.s' flowery instructions in the seven liberal arts; Plato's unfathomable depth in his _Timaeus_; the obscure wisdom of Aristotle, hardly lighted up in our present days, in his book on the _hermeneia_, and Cicero's eloquence in the _Topica_.

"How serious and faithful might our conversation not have been, if they had questioned me, about these treasures! How could I imagine that such as I, whom G.o.d has so richly gifted, would be ridiculed on account of mistaking a _casus_! I who know Donat and Priscia.n.u.s almost by heart!

"It is probable that that empty c.o.xcomb believes, that he carries the whole of the _Grammatica_, in his hood,--but beloved brethren, believe me--he has scarcely had a glimpse of her back in the distance, and if he were to try, to catch sight of her radiant countenance, he would stumble, and fall to the ground, over his own awkward feet. The _Grammatica_ is a n.o.ble woman, who wears for a woodcutter an aspect very different from that she has for an Aristotle.

"But how shall I speak to you of grammar's sister, of dialectics, whom that Greek sage has called, the nurse of intellect? Oh n.o.ble art! that entangles the fool in her nets, whilst showing the wise man how to evade them, and discloses to our wondering eyes, the hidden threads, by which being and not-being are linked together! But of that, yon cowl-bearing monk knows nothing! Nothing of that subtle fineness, which with nineteen kinds of syllogisms, knows how to explain all that, which has ever been thought before, as well as all that which can be thought hereafter. G.o.d is wise, and deprives him of such knowledge; knowing beforehand that he would only use it for deceitful and wicked ends ..."

In this way the learned Italian proved his superiority in all the liberal arts. To rhetoric and all its treasures, a whole chapter was dedicated, in which certain persons, to whom the G.o.ddess Minerva had once appeared in their dreams; and fools who believed that brevity of expression is a proof of wisdom, were pointedly alluded to. Then arithmetic, geometry and astronomy were discussed; interspersed with deep investigations, on the questions, whether the stars were gifted with intellectual souls, and a claim on immortality; and further whether at the time when Joshuah had said: "Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon," he had also imposed immobility on the other five planets; or whether these had been allowed to continue their circular motion.

A profound sounding of this problem, offered an opportunity of speaking first of the harmony of the spheres, and then of music in general, as the last of the liberal arts; and thus the vengeance-fraught little s.h.i.+p, carried along by the billowy floods of learning, could at last reach the goal, it had so long been aiming at.

"Wherefore now do you think, that I have expounded all this?" asked he finally.

"Not to expound the elements of the liberal arts, but to expose the folly of an ignorant man, who preferred pecking away at grammatical blunders, to deriving true wisdom, from his guest; for though his inward nature may for ever be shut out from the realms of art, he might at least have caught an outward reflection of my light. But he was swelling with insolent pride, so that he preferred to pa.s.s for a sage amongst his fellow-monks; like to that frog which sitting in the mire, thought to rival the bull in greatness. Ah, never has the pitiful creature, stood on the heights of science, hearing G.o.d's own voice speak to him. Born in the wilderness and grown up amidst silly, prattling people, his soul has remained on the level of the beasts of the field. Unwilling to dwell in the active life of this world, and incapable of a life of inward contemplation, he has been marked by the enemy of mankind, as his own. Willingly I would exhort you to try what could be done for him, with the aid of healing medicine, but I sadly fear that his disease is too deeply rooted.

"'For on a hardened skin, even sneeze-wort will prove, unavailing,'

says Persius.

"And now, after having read all this, please to judge ye venerable brothers, whether I am the man to have merited such treatment and ridicule, from the hands of a fool. I deliver both him and myself into your hands, for before the judgment of the just, the fool falls back into his own nothingness. _Finis!_"

"... Praised be the holy Amandus!" said Gunzo once more, when the last word of his work had been written down. The old serpent would certainly have swelled with joy, if it could have watched him, in the full glory of his likeness to deity, when he added the last dot. 'And G.o.d looked on all that he had made, and behold, it was good.' And Gunzo?--He did the same.

Then he walked up to his metal looking-gla.s.s, and gazing for a long time at his own reflection, as if it were of the greatest importance for him, to study the countenance of the man who had annihilated the Ekkehard of St. Gall, he finally made a deep bow to himself.

The bell in the refectory had for some time been announcing the supper-hour. Psalm and grace were finished, and the brotherhood was already seated before the steaming millet-porridge, when Gunzo at last came in with a radiant countenance. The dean, silently pointed to a remote corner away from his customary seat; for he, who missed the regular hour too often, was, as a punishment, separated from the others, and his wine was given to the poor. But without the least murmur, Gunzo sat down, and drank his Belgian pump-water,--for his book was lying finished in his cell, and that made up to him for everything.

When the meal was over, he invited some of his friends to come up to his cell, in as mysterious a way, as if they were about to dig for some hidden treasure, and when they were all a.s.sembled, he read his work out to them. The monastery of St. Gallus, with its libraries, schools and learned teachers, was far too famous in all Christendom for the disciples of St. Amandus not to listen to the whizzing of Gunzo's arrows, with a secret joy. Cleverness and a blameless life, are often far more offensive to the world, than sin and wickedness. Therefore they nodded their h.o.a.ry heads approvingly, as Gunzo read out the choice bits.

"It would have been well before this, to have taught these Helvetian bears a lesson!" said one. "Insolence joined to roughness does not deserve any gentler treatment."

Gunzo continued. "_Bene, optime, aristotelicissime!_" murmured the a.s.sembled monks, when he had ended.

"May the dish please you, Brother Akhar!" exclaimed another. "Belgian spice, to flavour the Helvetian cheese!"

The brother head-cook, embracing Gunzo, actually wept with joy. Nothing so learned, profound and beautiful, had ever gone out into the world before, from the cloister of St. Amandus. Only one of the brothers was standing immovable near the wall.

"Well?" said Gunzo interrogatively.

"And where is charity?" softly asked the brother, and after these few words he relapsed again into silence The reproach struck home.

"Thou art right, Hucbald," said he. "This want shall be supplied.

Charity requires us to pray for our enemies. Therefore I will add a prayer for the poor fool, at the end. That will have a good appearance, and impress all tender minds favourably. Ay?"

But the brother did not reply. It had become very late, and they all left the cell now on tip-toe. Gunzo tried to retain him who had spoken of charity, as he cared a good deal for his opinion; but Hucbald turned away and followed the others.

"Matthew twenty-three, verse twenty-five," he murmured when his foot had crossed the threshold. n.o.body heard it.

Slumber that night, however, obstinately refused to close the eyes of Gunzo the learned. So he read the production of his industry over and over again. He soon knew in what place every word stood, and yet he could not withdraw his eyes from the well-known lines. At last he seized his pen, saying: "A more pious ending,--so be it!" He reflected a while, pacing up and down his cell with slow measured steps. "It shall be done in hexametres, for who has ever before, retaliated an insult received, in so worthy a manner?"

So he sat down and wrote. He wished to write a prayer for his enemy,--but then n.o.body can act contrary to his nature. Once more he glanced over the written pages. They were really too good! Then he penned the supplement. When the c.o.c.k was announcing the dawn of day, this also was finished. Two dozen and a half of rattling monks' verses.

That his thoughts, from the prayer for his antagonist, by degrees, diverged on himself and his glorious work, was but a natural transition for a man gifted with so much self-esteem.

With complacent unction, he wrote down the five last stanzas.

"Go then into the world, my book; and wherever, thou findest, Shameful, slanderous tongues, which my glorious life are defiling, Crush them without remorse, and humble them with thy just censure, Until thy author one day, will enter the kingdom of Heaven, Such as is promised to him, who has not buried his talents."

The parchment was rough, and resistant, so that he had to press the goose-quill, in order to make it receive the letters.

On the next day, Gunzo packed up his epistle in a tin box, and this again in a linen bag. A bondsman of the monastery, who had slain his brother, had taken a vow of a pilgrimage to the grave of the twelve Saints, with his right arm chained to his right hip; and to pray there until some heavenly sign of grace, was shown to him. His way led up the Rhine. So, Gunzo put the tin case round his neck, and a few weeks later, it was delivered safe and sound into the hands of the gate-keeper at Reichenau. Gunzo well knew his friends there. Therefore he had dedicated the libel to them.

Moengal the old parish-priest had also some business to transact in the monastery, on that day. In the stranger's room sat the Belgian pilgrim.

They had given him some fish-soup, which he managed to eat with much difficulty; his chains clinking whenever he lifted his arm.

"Thou hadst better go home again, and marry the widow of the man thou hast slain," said Moengal. "That would be a far better expiation, than to make a fool's journey into the wide world, with your rattling chains."

The pilgrim shook his head silently, as if he thought that such chains might prove heavier still, than any which the blacksmith could forge.

Moengal asked to be announced to the Abbot. "He is very busy with some book he is reading," was the answer. Nevertheless he was ushered into his presence.

"Sit down, parish-priest," graciously said the Abbot. "I know that you are rather fond of salty and peppery things. Here's something for you."

He read out to him Gunzo's libel which had just arrived. The old man listened attentively, but his eyebrows contracted and his nostrils expanded during the lecture.

When he had come to the description of Ekkehard's curly hair and fine shoes, the Abbot was nearly convulsed with laughter, but Moengal sat there, rigid and serious, and on his forehead a frown had gathered, like clouds before a thunderstorm.

"Well I reckon, that his pride will be well whipped out of him!" said the Abbot. "Sublime! really sublime! And an abundance of knowledge.

That will strike home, and cannot be answered."

"But it can though," grimly said the parish-priest.

"And in what way?" eagerly asked the Abbot.