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Title: The friar of Wittenberg
Author: William Stearns Davis
Release date: February 15, 2026 [eBook #77944]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The MacMillan Company, 1912
Credits: Tim Lindell, Dori Allard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FRIAR OF WITTENBERG ***
Transcriber’s Notes: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores:
_italics_. Bold text is surrounded by equal signs: =bold=.
THE FRIAR OF WITTENBERG
[Illustration:(colophon)]
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
DALLAS · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE FRIAR OF WITTENBERG
BY
WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS
AUTHOR OF “A FRIEND OF CÆSAR”
“GOD WILLS IT,” ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1912
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1912,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1912.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
AT THE COURT OF HIS HOLINESS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A ROOM IN THE VATICAN 1
II. MARIANNA 14
III. THE FEAST AT THE VILLA FARNESINA 26
IV. THE JUDGMENT OF LEO DE’ MEDICI 38
BOOK I
THE AWAKENING
V. I COME TO SCHLOSS REGENSTEIN 49
VI. ILSA OF THE HARZ 59
VII. WHAT BEFELL AT SCHLOSS BLANKENBURG 73
VIII. I HEAR JOHN TETZEL 86
IX. I HEAR MARTIN LUTHER 98
X. THE HAMMER STROKES 114
XI. I COME TO MAINZ 125
XII. THE VOICE OF ITALY 131
XIII. THE CALL FROM THE NORTH 139
BOOK II
THE STRUGGLE
XIV. HOW I LEFT PALAESTRO 151
XV. WHAT I FOUND IN THE NORTH 170
XVI. THE GREAT WORD AT LEIPZIG 185
XVII. DR. LUTHER GIVES COURAGE 196
XVIII. I HEAR OF ILSA 207
XIX. I REVISIT THE HOLY CITY 217
XX. THE HOLY FATHER ORDAINS 227
XXI. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 241
XXII. THE FRIAR OF WITTENBERG ORDAINS 253
XXIII. I MEET ABBESS THECKLA 263
XXIV. I PLAY WITH FIRE 273
XXV. THE ROAD TO WORMS 284
XXVI. WE ENTER WORMS 292
BOOK III
THE VICTORY
XXVII. ’TWIXT GABRIEL AND LUCIFER 299
XXVIII. BEHOLD, HE PRAYETH 314
XXIX. THE WITNESS BEFORE CÆSAR 327
XXX. THE HAND OF FORLI 341
XXXI. THE OFFER OF CÆSAR 356
XXXII. I REFUSE CÆSAR 371
XXXIII. ILSA VICTRIX 388
XXXIV. THE DEED UNDER THE BEECHWOOD 406
XXXV. THE BRIDE OF WARTBURG 426
AFTERWORD 433
THE FRIAR OF WITTENBERG
PROLOGUE
AT THE COURT OF HIS HOLINESS
CHAPTER I
A ROOM IN THE VATICAN
“Martin Luther--yes, the name of that fool of a German comes back to
me.”
“You were going to tell a story about him, Eminenza,” I remarked.
“A very brief and scurvy story.” The Cardinale di Forli stretched
out his red-slippered feet, and reached languidly for the carafe
of Chianti upon the table at his elbow. He had already emptied the
cup several times and his thick lips were a little flushed. “It was
six years ago--1511, to be exact, I remember; just before my lucky
elevation. Well, I was then lodging at our convent near Santa Maria
in Ara Cœli. I was the prior and manager, and very good dinners we
had. What must needs happen but that stupid northern brute of a friar
should visit Rome, and demand hospitality at our convent. Ugh! but
what an unkempt rogue! He had come from Wittenberg, some den or town
up in your frozen north, on business for his order before the papal
chancery. We tried to show him kindness, and it was as good as a
mummer’s play to see the way the fellow ran around to visit all the
holy spots in the city. I doubt if there was a smoky shrine at which
he didn’t burn a candle, or a dirty saint’s relic he didn’t want
to see. He was amazingly anxious to go everywhere possible to heap
up indulgence for the souls of his parents, and one day I told him
about the Scala Santa. ‘Just mount the Holy Stairs on your knees,’ I
advised, ‘say a prayer on each of the twenty-eight, and though your
father were a bandit and your mother a witch, the devil will never
get a glimpse of them in the hereafter.’ So off he went like one
possessed, but came back much sooner than I thought. ‘Did you mount
and pray on the stairs?’ I asked. ‘Reverend prior,’ answered he with
a bad genuflection, and worse Latin, ‘as I knelt on the middlemost
stair it seemed as though a voice spoke to me from heaven, “The just
shall live by faith!” I arose and descended without kneeling on the
rest.’ ‘The just shall live by faith!’ That from a bristly boar! Oh!
his lousy impudence! He was so utterly comical I had to laugh in his
face.”
“The incident is vastly entertaining,” interposed the other member of
our conference, his Eminence of Rocca, “but the Cardinale di Forli
will allow me to remind him that I have a dinner appointment with a
lady by the Ponte Molle, and that we have much to discuss.”
“Ah, yes,” returned Forli, good-humoredly, tossing down his cupful,
“so business before pleasure--” And he reached for a pile of papers
upon the table....
A handsome, well-groomed man was Forli, barely gray, and becoming
somewhat stout from abundant good living, though his red robes and
red biretta could make him look half saintly when he rolled in his
open carriage down the Corso. His companion, the Cardinale di Rocca,
a leaner, younger personage, was in civilian costume, the latest
achievement of his Venetian tailor, and even now he was glancing
down with satisfaction upon his party-colored red and green hose,
delicately embroidered with falcons and herons in gold thread, his
black velvet doublet with its slashed sleeves, and the large jewelled
buckles upon his morocco shoes.
The room wherein we found ourselves was one of those numberless
huge, rambling apartments upon the upper floor of the Vatican. It
was richly furnished in a dark heavy way, with a good “Annunciation”
(I believe by Timoteo Viti) upon the wall, Persian carpets under
foot, and three wide windows opening gloriously upon the wide Vatican
gardens, whence--a great distance below--sounded the shouts of a bevy
of young court chamberlains and court ladies at some game, mingled
with the dull clicks of the masons chipping on the marble blocks for
the rebuilding of S. Pietro. Forli of course had his own palace in
the city, but like the other Papal vice-chancellors, preferred to
keep a few rooms at the Vatican, since he wished to be in easy touch
with His Holiness. Here he had arranged for us to meet him.
“Draw your chair nearer, Gualtiero,” he motioned to me, “and you
also, Rocca. I take it the servants are out of earshot, but stones
and plaster in the Vatican tell tales. Ahem! We’ve not discussed the
matter fairly yet. Since the Conte di Palaestro is so interested--”
“I cry your pardon, Eccellenza,” I interposed, “I prefer the
Cardinale di Rocca shall know me as the Graf von Regenstein.”
Forli’s good humor was not shaken. “As you wish it,” he laughed,
“let me tell Rocca, then, that you are the son of the Graf von
Lichtenstein zum Regenstein (do I get your barbarous German
aright?), that most valorous condottieri who did Popes Alexander
Borgia and Julius such rare service, and who showed himself wise
beyond his people by marrying the Contessa di Palaestro. Whereby
their noble son and heir here is by title at once ‘Regenstein’ and
‘Palaestro,’--although why, being Italian born and bred, he prefers
his outlandish northern name, may the Madonna tell me--he cannot tell
himself!”
And then with another good-natured shrug he began unrolling the
papers.
“So, then, we are agreed that the Archbishop of Bari should be
displaced, and his benefices divided?”
Rocca nodded, his thin lips curling, “He was asked on the hunt only
last week by His Holiness--surest sign he is in succession for the
next creation.”
“The cardinals will hardly consent to that,” I suggested, “the
college is over large already.”
Forli shook his head. “I know the Pope. He smiles blandly and denies
when you hint ‘more cardinals,’ but I understand positively he is
resolved. There will be another red hat in a twelvemonth, unless Bari
is ruined--or removed,” letting his voice drop.
“And I,” thrust in Rocca, “have had my eyes since Easter on that
benefice of his in Aragon. Mine as soon as he leaves it vacant!
Haven’t I paid good gold for the reversion? And the income, six
thousand florins; what a godsend in my present debts and poverty!”
“I share your anxiety, my dear Rocca,” returned Forli with benignity.
“The reasons I wish Bari away from home are more personal, although
he holds one or two other preferments I would be glad to add to my
own,--a priory in Flanders, with a very good little canonry somewhere
near Bordeaux. And our dear Gualtiero here--his interest, of course,
is yet more immediate.”
“The conte then has decided to seek advancement in the Church?” asked
Rocca, glancing at me keenly.
“I have not really considered it until very lately,” I replied;
“but the continued favor of His Holiness has led me to feel that my
ambition might lie there, and if the Archbishopric of Bari were
offered me, I presume I could gratify my friends by ceding the
dependent benefices. I am passing rich,” I added a little proudly;
“it would be the preferment, the opportunity, of course--”
“Never despise the florins, my friend!” cried Forli, paternally;
“recall the old Tuscan proverb, ‘Good cats mouse better just to
grow fat, than from mere hunger.’ Still, we will not decline Bari’s
benefices,--eh, Rocca?”
“No--by Santo Paolo!”
“Don’t swear by the old saints, Rocca,” urged Forli, frowning; “very
vulgar: the worthy Bembo, our arbiter of letters, would be incensed.
‘By Jupiter!’ ‘By Diana!’ those are the oaths for philosophers and
gentlemen. Yet again to business: we are agreed Bari has become
dangerous to my influence with His Holiness, to Rocca’s pocket,
to Regenstein’s ambition. The Archbishopric of Bari once vacated,
it will take only a timely hint to secure it for our Gualtiero,
who will, of course, be content to wait a few years for the actual
cardinalate.”
“I will,” I assented, “yet, Eminenza, consider that his present
Holiness raised his nephew to the red hat, though only twenty-one
years old; I am twenty-five--”
“But hardly a kinsman of His Holiness,” smiled Forli; “a vast
difference. Yet patience,--Leo de’ Medici is living a long while for
a pope. That abscess which got him so many votes at the conclave may
break out again at any time, and then!--”
He waved his arms with true Italian elegance. “We trust the conclave
will appreciate the learning, eloquence, and ah,--the piety of the
Cardinale di Forli,” completed Rocca.
“_Grazie!_” cried the other, half rising.
“I consent, gentlemen,” I said, a trifle bored at the meandering of
the conversation. “I understand you do not wish to attack Bari unless
you can propose me as his successor; otherwise, some candidate of
the Cardinale di Metaponto would reap all your reward. I consent to
aid your undertaking, and I pledge myself not to lack in gratitude.
Yet wisdom would advise due caution in compassing the disgrace of
Bari.”
“Disgrace?” echoed both cardinals, looking at me a little blankly.
“I used the word, reverend sirs.”
“Why,” smiled Rocca, blowing through his teeth, “I presume there is
after all some disgrace in dying with great abruptness.”
Before I could make answer, a polite knock upon the door brought a
“Pestilenza!” from the lips of Forli, but he promptly called out to
enter.
The stranger was a dapper little man all in black, with a black chin
beard, and long, clawlike hands and fingers.
“Pardon, a thousand pardons, for intruding upon my masters,” he
began, almost ere he had straightened himself after a profound bow;
“but knowing your excellencies’ admiration for all objects of virtue,
I venture to intrude to tell you that the ‘Crucifixion,’ by Messere
Raffaello, being completed, is now this instant on exhibition at the
end of this gallery. No doubt you will be pleased to see it.”
Not a cloud seemed to darken Forli’s face as he rose and signed to us
to follow.
“We thank you, Signor Primati; indeed we are not so busy but that we
can give ourselves the pleasure of a hasty inspection.”
Rocca and I could do nothing save accompany him, and of what
followed I have no need to speak at great length, save how we all
agreed that the distinguished artist had surpassed almost all his
earlier triumphs in dealing with such themes.[1] Very happily he
had grouped the weeping women before the cross; and in the face of
the agonizing Madonna I recognized a most fortunate treatment of the
features of the famous Fornarina, his mistress, the baker’s daughter
from the Trastevere, while in St. Peter, St. John and others, I
noticed well-known Roman ecclesiastics. I was especially pleased to
see Forli’s daughter, my own beloved Marianna, portrayed as Mary
Magdelene, although in so doing the artist had been obliged to depart
from custom, and represent her with dark instead of golden hair.
It was, in short, a masterpiece, even for the master, and well repaid
the interruption. Rocca and I also were given a new opportunity to
observe that just power of critical appreciation which made Forli so
esteemed among the art patrons of Rome.
“The foreshortening of the arms of the impenitent thief--how
admirable! The reflection upon the helmet of the centurion to the
left could hardly have been better. I could wish Messere Raffaello
could have concentrated more light upon the cross. A mere trifle.
He’s wise in avoiding over-theatrical effects. And notice the
chiaroscuro of the background: that magnificent fork of lightning
over Jerusalem! I congratulate you, Signore Primati, upon having the
oversight of such a picture. Imagine the delight of His Holiness.”
“I knew your excellencies would be repaid,” replied the custodian,
rubbing his lean little hands. “Messere Raffaello will rejoice in
your kind judgments. He was so fearful of your verdict, I could not
induce him to remain. He has slipped away, not daring to await your
august decision. Ah! New pleasure,--I see the most worthy Sanazzaro
coming to bestow his approbation upon your Eminenza’s opinion.”
The newcomer was a sleek, well-oiled gentleman, sprucely dressed in
a tight-fitting suit of mouse color, with only a quill pen behind an
ear to show that he called himself a professional scholar. He was
full of fine phrases for us, and laudations of the picture, which
last were obviously perfunctory, for it soon appeared, to the vast
disgust of Primati, that he had come not to admire the painting but
to submit to Forli about forty new lines of his half-finished epic,
“The Virgin Birth,” and to crave the cardinal’s wisdom upon certain
doubtful quantities and Latinisms, a judgment in which he politely
invited Rocca and myself to join; and Forli, pleased to show the
same mastery of one art as of another, made haste to run over the
hexameters, bestowing a profusion of compliments, intermixed with
tactful criticism.
“The introduction of the cattle in the stable at Bethlehem,--charming
and natural. But _bos_--a crude and grating word--is scarcely used in
this sense by Seneca or Cicero. Again you speak of ‘Our Lord coming
for the remission of our sins.’ Excellent, thrice excellent were we
mere theologians, but a poet with such an exalted theme might with
more dignity say ‘Apollo come to bear the divine pity of the Manes.’
Happier, is that not? And more genuinely classical and Latin? But
the next two lines--how delicately you throw the accent upon this
_venisset_. Yet I cannot approve this ‘Virgo Maria’; ‘Virgo Diana’ is
the only proper term, as I observed before; I crave your opinion in
this, my dear conte, your Latinity is impeccable.”
“I agree with you, Eminenza,” I assented, “although in view of the
theme, some slight concession might be made in the nomenclature.”
“Consistency, consistency,” urged the senior cardinal. “Signor
Sanazzaro is not writing for ignorant monks, but for men of true
learning and _virtù_. You will find all the best authorities on my
side,--Bembo, Pomponazzo, Politiano, Pontano, and many more. Purge
away these small blemishes, my noble friend, and who dare not hope
that the ‘Virgin Birth’ may not enjoy the immortality of the ‘Æneid’?”
“The Eminenza’s praise is overpowering,” smiled the poet, receiving
back the paper with a profound reverence; “but I fear I have intruded
upon some grave conversation. I invoke the blessings of Olympus upon
your excellencies, and crave leave to depart.” With which he bowed
himself away.
Rocca, mindful of his own appointment, was clearly glad to have him
gone, nor did I wish to detain him. Primati had already quitted us,
and as the poet’s smart mantle disappeared down the gallery, Rocca at
once broke in with,
“Now let us resume the former discussion.”
“About ‘the Crucifixion’?” I asked.
“About the assassination,” corrected Forli, smiling gently, and
beckoning us back to his chamber.
I suspect the others had already noticed my reluctant manner, for by
the time the door was closed behind us Rocca had me by the arm and
was demanding: “Wherefore do you look so sour?”
“Because,” I retorted bluntly, “I do not enjoy the answer given me by
his Eminence of Forli,” at which the elder cardinal burst out in a
hearty laugh.
“Assassination? Well, by Jupiter, the word is uncouth, and we will
find one that will sit better on squeamish German stomachs! Say,
then, we discuss the means for the withdrawal, departure, translation
to a happier Elysian field than Rome of the learned and pious
Monsignore di Bari.”
I could see both Forli and Rocca watching me with the same glance
itinerant students fix on younger neophytes, when testing their
ability to drain a very deep flagon. But I was resolved not to let
myself be browbeaten. “Your Eminences,” I said a little crossly, “do
not think I fail to appreciate the service you have proposed to do a
very young man like myself; but you must not think me ungrateful if I
say I did not contemplate the murder of the Archbishop of Bari when I
accepted this appointment.”
“And what, pray,” drawled Rocca with insulting irony, “did the
estimable Graf von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein conceive we _did_
purpose to arrange at this charming tête-à-tête?”
I was aware I seemed to play the fool. I was no stranger at Rome.
However, I refused to capitulate.
“You told me to come and concert the displacement of Bari. Good.
I will do so. So far I go with you. He has intrigued against His
Holiness with the King of France. We can secure proofs. The Spanish
Ambassador will aid us. My body-servant Andrea knows some women in
Bari’s household; through them we can get gossip to be used against
him. A little cleverness--such as your Eminences can so readily
supply--will suffice to send Bari an outlaw to Paris. Assassination
becomes doubly a crime when it is needless.”
Forli sat back in his armchair, complacently twirling his thumbs.
“My dear Gualtiero,” he said slowly, “despite your Germanisms I love
you well, and so of course does Marianna. But I confess it is your
thick northern wits that now are working, not your Italian ones.
You stick at poison or dagger, but a man’s fair name or riches you
would filch with all merriment: though betwixt a swift, easy death,
and an outlawry with Donna Poverty for companion and mistress--_pro
dei immortales!_ give me the dying! Besides, your scheme is
impracticable. You know how strong French influence is with His
Holiness, King Francis will move heaven and hell to save a precious
adherent from disgrace. Bari is a skilful huntsman, a good Latin
versifier, and plays excellently at cards--three strong reasons why
Leo will hesitate to believe ill of him. In fine--_amico mio_--you
are brought back to only one way,--a very short one.”
I stood drumming with my fingers on the window-sill, staring
stupidly out into the Vatican gardens. I could not controvert the
practical arguments of Forli. Bari’s position with the Pope was nigh
impregnable. I could not give warning of the plot concocted by an
intimate friend and the father of my lady-love,--and of these facts
the others were quite aware. I had always expected some day to be
dragged into a plot like this--and had dreaded it. But what must be
must. After all, the murder was not of _my_ contriving. Meantime
Forli conferred eagerly with Rocca.
“Well--how manage it?”
“I always liked Pope Alexander Borgia’s way--an invitation to
dinner--a box of sweetmeats put within tempting reach--”
“Ugh!” interrupted Forli, “I was almost nipped thus at Siena four
years ago,--took medicine just in time. But it will not do now. Bari
distrusts us. He’ll accept none of our invitations.”
“A fee to his cook?”
“Very uncertain. Sometimes such servants are devilishly faithful.”
“Then we seem driven to look for bravoes.”
“Very right. Bari is reckless where he goes. I know where his lady
friends live and when he visits them. It can be managed. I used to
know the proper man, but he got himself hanged and quartered up at
Ferrara last autumn.”
Rocca scratched his chin meditatively.
“I believe Ettore Orosi is in Rome. His price, however, would be very
high.”
“He who put the Duke of Gandia in the river, and later cut down the
Cardinal of Pavia, whilst he was on his way to visit the Pope?”
“The same man. I think I can reach him. My valet saw him
yesterday--just returned from Naples.”
“We must pay his fee. A very proper man,” Forli was reflecting aloud,
when I turned upon them angrily.
“Reverend sirs, I repeat to you, despite my southern breeding I am
northern enough not to enjoy this calm discussion of a bandit’s
business. You understand that, if you continue in the act you propose
so deliberately, I will have no part therein. I cry pardon for my
discourteous tone, but I trust you both understand me.”
“You will not refuse the Archbishopric, however,” sneered Rocca
wolfishly.
“Pious sirs,” I retorted, “an old proverb, current in many tongues,
warns against dividing the bear’s skin ere slaying the bear.”
Forli brought his hands together with a smart slap.
“My dear Gualtiero,” spoke he, smiling, “I once counted myself the
happy intimate of the illustrious Prince Caesare Borgia. I may
humbly claim some modest experience in these and other like delicate
matters. When I have fairly made my pact with Orosi, Bari will not be
in danger. Bari will be--in heaven. The chance of a slip is not worth
an argument.”
I felt the disadvantage of my position and reached rather stiffly for
my biretta.
“Eminenzas,” I announced, “you know I am bound to you by the ties of
hospitality and friendship to do nothing to warn Bari. I owe him no
love, and will gladly pleasure you in aiding to work his downfall;
but I am fain to recall the command my honored father gave me before
his last campaign,--‘slay your man, but with the sword, not the
stiletto.’ If, therefore, you continue in your present intent, I
can only wish you a very good day, and avow I have no part in your
deliberations.”
I was moving towards the door, but Rocca called after me.
“Ah! noble conte, you do so recall to me that very illustrious Roman,
Pontius Pilatus, who once washed his hands when he saw the Jews doing
something very wrong.”
“I do not thank you for the simile, Cardinale di Rocca,” I said,
with my hand on the latch, “but if I am Pilatus, I leave behind me
Caiaphas and Herod. And so, _addio_!”
I walked away briskly, thoroughly angered at being made party to
so crude a transaction. (I did not at that time use a harsher
adjective.) I was in fact, in great ill-humor, and was about to
work it off by seeking some gayer friends on the Corso, when, upon
descending the stairs, I ran upon a grinning Moorish boy who, “Begged
to inform his lordship that Donna Marianna awaited him in the Vatican
gardens.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This picture seems to have perished in the sack of Rome in 1527
A.D.--EDITOR.
CHAPTER II
MARIANNA
I made my way downward through the huge palace, bowed to this red
robe and to that, exchanged greetings with various “Gentlemen
Chamberlains” whom I called my friends, promised Monsignore the
General of the Dominicans that I would loan him a parcel of Greek
books just come from Aldus’s press at Venice, and congratulated
Messere Bibbiena on the piquancy and wit of his last comedy--in
short, I moved on my way as became a man who knew how to avoid both
discourteous haste and needless dallying; until at the entrance
gate of the gardens the yellow-clad Swiss guardsman on duty saluted
with his halberd, and before me opened the delightful masses of
cool shrubbery and green lawn interspersed with the white marble of
statuary,--the charming confines of the gardens that I knew so well.
As stated, I was not in good humor. No man could live in Rome, as
I had lived in recent years, and fail to come close to deeds which
non-Italian folk must needs call murder. Only the year before I
had stood with my back to a wall and my rapier and three bravoes
before me until timely help arrived; and I had met the instigator
of those bravoes at a supper party not long since,--as polite and
polished a nobleman as ever graced a court. Yet I had never actually
been myself a prime mover in an assassination. I had killed my man
in a duel, but that was another matter. I strongly suspected the
cardinals had summoned me in, not to secure my help, but to laugh
at my squeamishness, and I was inclined to wish that Orosi would
grievously disappoint his employers, and turn the laugh against them.
“After all,” I reflected, “I am not certain that I wish to enter the
Church; and if I do, His Holiness can give me a better preferment
than this debated to-day.”
Likewise the memory of sundry injunctions of my father (grizzled
warrior) must needs at such times ring in my ears, especially his
word just ere he was slain at Ravenna. “You have your mother’s hair
and eyes, my Walter, but your heart is from me; and remember that
long as I have lived in this merry southland my heart is German.
Live like a German, think like a German, and remember the German
honor--the honor of the Regensteins. Many of us have been caught by
the Devil; but never has the Devil caught us in the back!”
“And may the Devil eat Orosi, and Forli, too!” I at length muttered.
“If the chance comes, I am even minded to give the wink to poor Bari.”
Yet despite my mood I quickened my steps, for I knew my lady would
be ungracious over delaying. One or two excursions into the nooks of
shrubbery failed to discover her, and I was a little at a loss until
I ran upon one of the smooth-lipped eunuch-sopranos of His Holiness’s
choir, who informed me that Donna Marianna was walking with a
gentleman of the Spanish embassy, near the Pope’s casino; and so near
the garden lodge I found her.
Don Velasco let his mustaches quiver with vexation when he saw
me,--surely he was having a most pleasant stroll under those
splendid box trees: but Madonna knew how to do an ungracious thing
graciously. Very politely she explained that the Conte di Palaestro
was present by appointment: very ceremoniously Velasco and I scraped
and flourished as he bade us farewell. Not until he was fairly out of
sight behind a curve in the leafy way did her white hand go out to
me, as I fell on my knees and kissed it; then I rose for a fairer
kiss upon my lips, whereupon I forgot our conversation; for were
we not close together, I at least intoxicated by the glory of her
presence, and the mere joy of her companionship?
Years ago it was; and years how full of many things! Yet the richness
of those moments in the Vatican gardens lingers with me still. And if
you could have seen her then, with the gold of that Latin sunlight
pouring itself over her, you would not have wondered that all Rome
called me as lucky in my love as in my fortune. For Marianna’s beauty
was the hot dark beauty of the south,--of Trojan Helen, of Aspasia,
or more likely of Poppaea Sabina, enchantress of Nero. Angel she was
not. Pinturicchio’s and Perugino’s seraphs had never such raven hair,
nor that full bare neck, nor the black eyes, the cheeks of cream and
rose color tinted by the Neapolitan sun: also their glances were mild
and dove-like, not lit by Queen Juno’s wit and fire. Still do I see
her, as she walked with me; the springtime sun glowing on her face
and forehead, on her long arms, on the Arabian pearls upon her hair,
the Egyptian turquoise at her throat, and the full satin sheen of her
scarlet dress and golden girdle; while all the time her hands flew
in those quick Italian gestures, accenting the music of her voice.
Verily, were not the Vatican gardens even as the gardens of the
Hesperides to me that hour? And would I then have accepted heaven had
an archangel offered it?
But at last we were ready to talk of many matters, and plainly
Marianna had somewhat to ask.
“So, Gualtiero, you have seen my father?”
“I have just left his chambers.”
“And who was there?”
“Why, Rocca--a little criticism of some of Sanazarro’s verses--”
Marianna shook her head charmingly.
“Manifestly, Gualtiero, your wits were made in the north. Did my
father and Rocca meet solely to weigh Latin metres?”
“I do not understand, _cara mia_.”
“The Conte (she called me thus to make me vexed) is disingenuous. I
will refresh his memory. He was asked if he did not wish to enter the
Church?”
“I was.” It displeased me Forli had revealed matters to his daughter.
I always discussed with Marianna at disadvantage.
“And of course you consented?”
“How fast that green lizard runs across the path,” I observed, trying
to change the subject.
“Not more fast than a thousand others. Tell me,--are you to be
Archbishop of Bari?”
“When I found precisely what their Eminences had to propose,” I
replied constrainedly, “I was obliged to decline my share in the
project.”
“Excellent!” she clapped her hands prettily. “I have won my wager
with Rocca! His best white palfrey against my Moorish boy.”
“Your wager with Rocca?”
“Assuredly. You remember the horse races in the Piazza di San Pietro?
I sat with Rocca near His Holiness at the Vatican windows. We talked
of you and your northern ancestry. Rocca vowed you had become wholly
Italian, a true virtuoso and humanist. I rejoined I knew you better.
You would fight a score of duels, but never hire a bravo. He doubted.
We laid a wager. My father’s plans fell in well with the test. He has
long held you must enter the Church, in justice both to yourself and
your friends. Bari of course has been a marked man for months. To-day
the bait was proffered you. _Ecco!_ I have won.”
With any save Marianna, I would have been exceeding angry, but with
her hand upon my wrist, her breath almost upon my face, I think she
could have said, “I will feed you to the Hydra,” and I would have
cheerfully assented. After I had finished laughing at her pleasantly,
I asked why she seemed so anxious to have me enter the Church.
“Because, Gualtiero _mio_, look on the world,--I mean, of course,
Italy. What secular prince is of consequence? Did not Caesare Borgia
have as fair a chance to found a great power as can be given any
man--ability, an iron will, a ready hand, a Pope for father, and
marvellous good luck? But he is dead, an exile in Spain. Are not we
Italians caught betwixt the French and Spanish millstones? If we keep
our duchies and counties is it not by foreign sufferance? Does not
His Holiness chafe daily at the insolent dictation of the foreign
ambassadors? But art, learning, the love of the beautiful, the tongue
of Cicero, and the tongue of Dante still are ours. And the Church is
ours--the revenues drawn from frozen Norway and foggy England, from
all Christendom,--still they come to Rome! And Rome having riches,
wit, beauty, learning, has still her Empire. Therefore I would have
you enter the Church. For I am ambitious for you, _caro mio_, very
ambitious,”--and again she kissed me.
“The good sisters who taught you at the convent of San Silvesto may
well be proud of their pupil,” I rejoined gratefully. “Greece boasted
Sappho as the peeress of Homer in poetry. May not Italy then praise
Marianna di Forli as rival to the ancient Cicero and the modern
Piccolomini in the fair art of eloquence?”
Madonna shook her glorious head.
“Praise me, after you obey me. If you enter the Church, what a fair
future! You are rich, the Pope proverbially poor. How you can win
his favor! The red hat in a very few years, and then”--with a little
laugh--“will not the Conclave prefer a gay young Pope to an old surly
one? And who handsomer, wittier, more learned, better bred?--”
She did not finish, but flashed at me with her black eyes till my
head fairly buzzed with fine notions. And yet her suggestion amused
me mightily, and I replied:--
“I am glad you did not add, ‘and who more devout in life and
conversation.’”
“Devout? You, Gualtiero? Oh, Santo Spirito, what a noble figure you
would make arrayed as a black Dominican! You would even pass for a
Master Inquisitor.”
“In which case I think I know a noble lady one could send to the
rack for a thousand pagan heresies. Well--Rocca has just hinted your
father will be Pope: may he have a long pontificate ere I succeed
him. But less merrily, I sometimes wonder whither all this pleasant,
gay life at His Holiness’s court is tending.”
“To a great fête on Corpus Christi day, I trust sincerely.”
“And something thereafter. Hear this, Madonna,--Italy is not quite
all the world, though you may think it. What if we, with our Greek
and Latin, our Plato and our Plotinus, have learned to laugh at much
of the old theology, to think that San Marco and Æsop alike wrote
very good fables? Believe me, beyond the Alps they still receive the
old story of God and the saints as open-eyed peasants stand before a
mountebank. And if some day your ‘doltish Germans’ (as you say) learn
how His Holiness and the rest use these fables to filch money from
their purses,--do you think the round bags of gulden will come to
Rome quite so steadily as before?”
Marianna shrugged her shoulders gracefully.
“I don’t like your talk, Gualtiero. I only know that almost everybody
who has advised keeping back the Pope’s dues has been burned, and
that the last indulgence sale in Germany was profitable.”
“Excellent,” I assented; “still, suppose I do not prosper in the
Church? My plans go wrong?”
“The dispensation to reënter the world is purchasable. You would
still have your countships. We might even marry.”
“Marriage is the death of true love, carissima,” said I, my face
close now to hers. And what more we might have done I know not,
for at this instant our friends the Bishop of Montebello and the
guards-captain Della Fabriano surprised us, evidently upon some
errand....
An excursion up the Tiber towards Primaporta was what they wanted
us to join, and you may wager we did not decline on such a day. His
Reverence of Montebello was accompanied by a charming Florentine lady
whom he called his cousin: Fabriano was with a handsome, but somewhat
dull lady of Ravenna whom he did not call his cousin. Both of the
gentlemen had a lively wit, and there was enough bright dialogue
amongst us to go into a stage-play. Whilst our six stout watermen
stroked us along the yellow twisting stream we made Latin verses in
praise of Fabriano’s exploits upon the recent Urbino expedition:
verses which Montebello swore were equal to Ovid’s; and we attempted
a few in Greek, although here none of the ladies could follow us save
Marianna.
Oh! It was a day worth living, with the wind chasing down from the
Apennines, and sending little cohorts of white clouds flying before
the sun, and the soft, southern air, telling of Naples, Sicily,
Greece, caressing us. On the shore sounded the notes of the shepherds
piping to their sheep. Around our bow was the lapping music of the
old, old river. Behind us, into a golden haze, faded the domes and
campaniles of the undying city. If we had been Hellenes of Attica,
like mad Alcibiades full of the pagan sparkle and glory, never could
the “joy of life” have come more to us than it came upon that day.
And I think Marianna knew in part my thoughts, when the general
banter flagged a little, and we sat together listening to the water
and the oars.
“Confess to me, Gualtiero,” she broke softly in at last, “are you not
glad your mother was an Italian?”
“I thank all Olympus and its gods.”
“Yet you have visited your dreary north. Was it not very dreadful?”
“I went only as a young boy. What I recall is not unpleasant.”
“Come tell me, _caro mio_; I have known you so long, yet you tell
little enough of yourself. I know that you are rich, are a nobleman
in your own right both in Italy and Germany. What is this German
inheritance, Lich-ten-stein, and Re-gen-stein?” (She puckered her
lips, pronouncing each syllable as if it hurt her.) “Where is it?
When did your father get it?”
“A long story,” I began listlessly, leaning back on the cushions
and gazing more at Madonna’s face than at the gliding river bank.
“I have had no patience to learn it all. But the tale of my house
is this. I am a Lichtenstein; and anywhere north of the Alps there
is not a herald or pursuivant who will not tell you that many Dukes
and Markgrafs have no better blood than ours. Well--the older
line has kept the paternal principality near Austria. The younger
line--whereof I am the chief--acquired by marriage a castle in the
Harz, nigh to the centre of Germany--Regenstein. Therefore I am
called the Graf von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein, or more briefly, in
the speech of the country, the Graf von Regenstein.”
“I understand. But what is Regenstein? A black rocky tower amid a
desert?”
“By no means. I spent three years within it as a boy. I remember the
great turrets, with their spirelike roofs; the gray stretches of
impenetrable walls; the clouds of dusky rooks above every pinnacle;
huge halls where great fires roared, and shot out a ruddy glare upon
the bearskin rugs and the antlers and array of spears upon the wall.
The folk of the castle were gruff, unlike our sleek fellows here, all
oiled and bowing,--but honest and kindly. Around the castle, to every
side, stretched a deep wood such as is nowhere in Italy; sentinel
beeches and ancient firs; and not far off ran a stream. In winter it
was very cold. My father and his friends sat by the chimney place at
their beer all day long,--save when the foresters reported a wild
boar close to the castle--”
Madonna’s hands went up in a playful kind of horror.
“Oh! To talk of your Regenstein, while we float here upon the
beautiful river. Liefer would I fall amongst the man-eating savages
the Spaniards say they are finding over seas, than spend a winter
there!”
“I shall not compel you, _cara mia_,” I said, ardently.
“Blessed Mother! I trust not. Three years even as a boy in such
a place--why were you not ruined? The boorish habits,--guzzling,
gorging, and a boar hunt for interim! Doubtless not a book in the
whole vast dungeon?”
“Old chaplain Jakob had a small library.”
“Of saints’ lives and sham miracles, or else of outworn theology.
Perhaps a tract by a Hussite heretic; but no Latin poet, not to name
a Greek?”
“I fear not, Madonna.”
“Pity on you, my poor Gualtiero! How comes it you are such a
tolerable cavalier, and speak good Italian and Latin?”
“You forget,” I said, smiling, “my mother was the Contessa di
Palaestro. She died while I was a young boy, but her kinsfolk bred me
up amidst the best afforded by Padua and Florence. Since my father’s
death, five years since, I have sought Rome--and you.”
She ignored this last, and pushed her interrogations.
“Nevertheless, although you speak as an Italian, dress as an Italian,
are as gallant and learned as many an Italian, still you prefer to be
called the lord of Re-gen-stein?”
“It was my father’s wish. He found favor and fortune in Italy, even
an Italian title through my mother, yet his heart was ever in the
north. I know it was his dear wish that I should keep the old name,
and even return to the old land, and spend my days chasing the wild
doe over the slopes of the Brocken.”
“Will you ever return to Germany, Gualtiero?” she asked, holding down
her head.
“It is unlikely. Adolf, a bearish, loyal old martinet keeps the
castle and forwards the rents from the peasants. You would rather
visit me at Palaestro.”
“Yes: in the hills above Perugia, and infinitely beautiful. We could
hold a court there, as did the late Duke of Urbino. Poets, music,
fêtes-of-love, theatricals, carnivals,--that would amuse us all the
year long. How delightful!”
And then she smiled radiantly, and I knew she was about to press a
petition.
“Gualtiero, I shall never be happy until I know you severed from
your uncouth north forever. Sell Regenstein,--some fool will surely
buy it. The Pisani bank at Venice is a safer place for your fortune;
then, whether you enter the Church or not, I can think you are wholly
ours.”
“Impossible, Madonna; I must retain Regenstein, if only to honor my
father’s desire.”
She was not pleased, but I persisted; yet I was not sorry when
Montebello made the discussion general again by proposing a
new attack at the old question,--how many angels (infinitely
compressible) could dance upon the point of a needle (infinitely
small). Upon this merry whetstone, we sharpened our wits right
valiantly until the boat touched the shore near Primaporta. Here,
under some noble ilexes, the bishop’s servants spread us a
delightful collation,--everything choice, from the roasted thrushes
to the cool Frascati. The luncheon ended, it was then time to pull
back Romewards....
I accompanied Marianna to the Forli palace near the Ponte San Angelo.
The streets were crowded: five bandits had just been hanged by the
police upon the bridge, and everybody had turned out to see the
execution. The recent rains had left the ways very muddy, and pigs
and goats were running loose among the people, who treated them
with characteristic Roman indifference. The shadows were advancing;
already numerous gay-robed cavaliers and ladies of the merrier
sort,--all masked, were out for the evening pleasures, and mingling
with the ubiquitous water vendors and the Swiss guards off duty. Our
servants made us a path through the crowds, and we soon gained the
palazzo. In the courtyard I found Forli, a little apart, taking leave
of some elegantly clad personage, with a golden chain, a jewelled
hilt, and a delicately trimmed little red beard. Thinking him a
gentleman-in-waiting with whom I was acquainted, I drew near, but
their conversation soon undeceived me.
“So you intend to fulfil my little commission promptly?” urged the
cardinal.
The stranger pressed one hand upon his heart, while he swept the
pavement with his black hat-feather in salutation.
“Your Magnificence--I have been overwhelmed with the honor of
fulfilling your august desires. Is not my word given? Have I not
sworn by the Holy Mother of Loretto? Eccellenza--you deal with a man
of virtue and honor, who has but one and the same word for promise
and performance.”
“Then I may hope soon to hear of your dealings with Monsignore di
B----”? with a glance lest the servants be within ear-shot.
“Eccellenza--to-night: to-morrow at the latest. I know the
gentleman’s haunts and habits. I pledge to your service the skill of
Orosi, Ettore Orosi the valiant, the incomparable.”
“Very good; you already understand your honorarium.”
“I do, Eminenza: but in addition to the small gratification for
myself which you named, you will, I am sure, have a due number of
masses said for the soul of the unfortunate Monsignore. For as a
Christian”--he crossed himself devoutly,--“I profess, I would not
have his damnation upon my conscience. The more as the event does not
admit his being rightly shriven.”
“I pledge you they shall be most ample. I will even persuade the Holy
Father to perform one in person. Therefore report quickly. Addio!”
Thus with a wave of the hand Forli sent the bravo out; then turned to
me.
“Ecco! A most proper man: and stumbled on most promptly the very hour
we wanted him. As for you, I trust that Marianna has laughed you out
of your scruples.”
“She has surely laughed enough at me. How convinced I am I dare not
say. Enough that she has just promised to go with me to a late supper
party at Messere Chigi’s: and now I must hurry to my own palazzo in
order to dress in a manner not to disgrace her.”
“Donna Venus bless you, my children!” cried the good man; “how gay
you are together. I feared I was about to have a stupid evening with
my books, but His Holiness has summoned me to join him at his cards.
Then perhaps, ere we go to bed, we can hear from Orosi.”
Which surmise came true, though not as His Eminence expected.
CHAPTER III
THE FEAST AT THE VILLA FARNESINA
My own chambers were on a quiet street near Messere Raffaello’s
lodgings at the Palazzo dei Convertendi. On the walk I had time to
reflect that ere actually embracing a career in the Church I ought to
write to my father’s friend, the Senator Contarini of Venice, for his
opinion as to my chances of advancement at the French court.
“Surely,” I considered, “Marianna must realize that I cannot marry
her if I am to seek a secular career. A cardinal’s daughter is all
very well, but she is not a countess; while if I become a churchman
everything will go on as now, and my money will still be just as
useful to her and to Forli. And why should I take holy orders just to
humor them?” Amid such reflections I came to my palazzo.
Although Messere Chigi had invited us to “a very simple supper,”
I knew I ought not to ignore my toilet. All the world was aware
that the Chigis were brothers to Croesus and Crassus, that their
banks covered the Levant, that twenty thousand men manned their
argosies, and that barring the Fuggers of Augsburg, no mortals had
more ready money to lend to King or Pope. Accordingly, I let Andrea
and my second and third valets dress me with some carefulness;
and as I paused before the glass while Andrea gave me a finishing
touch of civet, I told myself I would make a tolerable figure. My
Milanese tailor had provided a gray suit which set my unimposing
figure to good advantage,--with a genteel fulness at the sleeves,
and fashionable slashes at the hips. Fine French lace at my
throat, a gold chain of curious carving, a couple of antique cameo
rings, and some excellent Venetian chasing upon my silver hilt and
scabbard,--these would make people say, “His Excellency the Conte
knows how to dress.” My own face was too familiar for me to observe
keenly, yet I remember thinking that with my black hair and mustache,
I certainly passed for an Italian gentleman, not for the heir of as
old a German house as could be found in the rolls of nobility at
Vienna.
It had been dark for hours when I returned to the Forli palace to
escort Marianna. We went with half a dozen stout fellows of the
Cardinal, as well as four men of my own, for we had no wish to meet
the surprise awaiting Monsignore di Bari. But despite two suspicious
looking fellows lurking in the shadows by the Ponte Sisto, we had no
adventures and came safely to the Villa Farnesina across the river
whither Messere Chigi had invited us.
The now famous decorations in the hall--by Raffaello and his
pupils--were not yet complete, but above our heads were already
traced the graceful forms and elegant draperies of the myth of
Psyche; and the master’s glorious Galatea in the antechamber I had
long before admired. But I confess I had little interest in the
paintings that night. After so many years,--so many scenes, grave and
gay, flitting in between,--I recall this banquet, even as I recall
my meeting with Marianna in the gardens, clearly, vividly. For was
not this to be the last day and evening of my old life? My life as
a child of the Southland,--careless, free, joyous,--obeying the law
of fair fancy, with the harsh words “duty” and “conscience” very far
away. I have learned to view life differently, yet well do I recall
it all!
Messere Chigi had surpassed himself. He greeted us with his wonted
courtly grace.
At his side was his beautiful friend, Francesca Andreozza, whom,
the year following, he was to marry. Her diamonds, I swear, were
better than those of the Queen of England. Raffaello was there and
his delightful Fornarina. Signor Bembo, the Pontifical Secretary,
and arbiter of correct Latin and Italian poetry, had come with his
pleasant companion, Donna Morosina; but I will not name all the
cardinals and their escorts, nor the Roman gentlemen,--Orsinis,
Contis, Colonnas, Ludovisis, Rospigliosis, and the rest. In short,
there were more than forty covers laid, and for elegance of manner
and brilliancy of conversation a more notable company could not have
been found in Rome. The guests then were worthy of Messere Chigi’s
best, which “best” implied a feast such as an Apicius might have laid
for an emperor.
The hall was cooled by great fans fixed overhead and worked by
invisible hands; in the centre rose a column whereon a beautiful
boy, stripped, and gilded like a statue, stood pouring water from
a silver urn. The scores of servants passing with silent feet were
clad in Eastern silks. The seneschal in charge changed his gorgeous
dress four times during the banquet. Rose water was brought for our
hands. Many of the dishes were triumphs of art--statuary rather than
confectionery. Perseus was shown saving Andromeda, and Ceres came
in her chariot drawn by five tigers. There was a sturgeon five feet
long upon one silver dish, and a stag served whole. The very bread
was gilded. Yet with it all there was no burden in the magnificence.
Messere Chigi had all his guests at their ease, and I soon found
myself separated from Marianna, who sat opposite with Rocca, while my
companion chanced to be the vivacious Contessa della Valle, with the
learned Master “Censor” Priario close at hand.
I forget all that we talked about during the innumerable courses, but
I recall that when some luscious pheasants were served, the Contessa
shrugged her shoulders.
“After all,” smiled she, “it is not yet midnight and to-day was
Friday.”
“All things are permitted in Rome,” I replied lightly. “How is that,
my wise Priario?”
“Excellently said,” returned the censor, lifting a choice morsel.
“Says not Scripture, ‘The Kings of the Earth take tribute of
strangers, but the Children (ourselves, of course), are free.’”
“Full pardon, then!” cried the Contessa, who had taken enough wine to
be a little gay. She helped herself, and I was complimenting her upon
some fine corals, when Cardinale di Porto, near by, asked if I had
read Pomponazzi of Mantua’s new essay upon “The Immortality of the
Soul.”
“Yes, I have read it,” I assented; “but I cannot claim to judge it as
an expert churchman.”
“Yet you have an opinion?”
“If I were a theologian, I should say the learned author has the
incredulity of Lucretius and the infidelity of a Moslem.”
“Too harsh, my dear Conte. It is a most excellent book. The author
declares clearly he submits to the Church in all its teachings, even
if the immortality of the soul is disproved by all human reasoning.”
“Nevertheless,” I contended, “for much lesser heresies better men
have walked to the stake.”
“The stake! Don’t mention the horrid word, Eccellenza,” begged the
lady nervously.
“Nevertheless,” I rejoined, “the book is so dangerous and heretical
that its sale is forbidden in Venice.”
“Of course,” retorted Porto, “your Venetian is ultra-orthodox;
praised be the immortals, His Holiness is more liberal!”
“I fear he would not prove so liberal,” I ventured, “if instead
of writing for a few philosophers, Pomponazzi had declared to the
multitude that ‘since it is doubtful whether we have immortal souls,
it is also doubtful whether we ought to pay tithes to Rome.’”
“There is no parallel!” cried the lady.
“The Contessa is right,” chimed Porto. “It is quite a different
matter to advance a cautious theory for the learned few, than to cast
pearls before swine,--I mean to cast sage conclusions before the
ignorant.”
“We will deal with your second case when it arises,” thrust in
Priario grimly, but at this moment the discussion was widened by a
question I heard the learned Messere Bembo putting, a little way down
the table.
“And tell me, my dear Chigi, how the last indulgence in Germany
sells? Will it not relieve His Holiness’s financial troubles?”
“The sale has hardly begun,” returned the banker; “but since the
Archbishop of Mainz has taken it over, it seems likely to prosper
tolerably. The appeal to ‘build St. Peter’s Church’ opens purse
strings. Then I hear that some admirably clever preachers have been
hired to do the hawking.”
“Clever?” queried Bembo, looking up from his goblet. “It cannot need
great cleverness to bewitch the money from the pouches of those
‘Barbarians,’ as the great Magister Gustiniani called them.”
“Yet you wrong our Northern friends,” said Chigi lightly. “True they
have more fleas than Latin words, more beer than good wine; and yet
they have a hearty rude civility and a learning after the old pious
sort. I have been in Nuremberg. I avow it was a passably handsome
city.”
“Impossible!” challenged the savant. “‘What good can come from such a
land of the frozen Hyperboreï?’ as Plato most irrefutably says in the
ninth chapter of the Timeaus--”
“We do not all understand Greek,” said Chigi deprecatingly. Perhaps
he saw that my face was growing red, and that others were looking at
me. “In my day I have seen many men of many countries. Believe me,
even a blackamoor improves on acquaintance. The French have a good
proverb, ‘The absent are always wrong.’”
But the secretary arose in the dogmatic pride of a complacent pedant.
“I have seen the brutes. I have learned to despise them. The French
are tolerable, but the Germans--” a gesture completed his disgust.
“Their best Latinist, Erasmus--who is he but a mere schoolboy still
conning his Donatus’s grammar?”
I was on my feet; Chigi beckoned for silence, but Bembo swept on.
“No thanks to Julius Cæsar, I assert, for bringing this disgusting
North by his conquests within reach of our civilization. Let them
freeze and moulder in their bogs! If their present credulity, ‘the
sins of the Germans’ as we say, is profitable to Rome,--whether
to build St. Peter’s or to pay His Holiness’s debts--’tis but the
just tribute of vice to virtue, of ignorance to learning. I tell
you, Chigi, neither you nor another can name a German or a son of a
German who was a tolerable scholar, and by habits a virtuoso and a
gentleman.”
The savant paused for breath. I attacked instantly. I spoke in my
best Latin, choosing each word carefully. The wine had only made my
senses more acute. I could see Marianna signalling to me “caution,”
but my fighting spirit was roused.
“Magister Bembo,” I began, “do me the honor to hearken. I tell you
that I am the son of a German nobleman, as honorable and perfect a
cavalier as ever drew a sword; and I will not have my father’s nation
slandered to my face. If I have spent most of my life in my mother’s
Southland, it is not through shame for my father’s North. Nobility
and learning, and ripe wisdom there are in the North,--things which
it ill becomes you men of erudition to deny. Honesty, kindliness and
loyalty there are in the North--things which you of Italy might learn
right well. And if the Germans still believe heartily divers matters
of religion, which you of Italy pretend to believe, and scoff at in
private,--the greater glory theirs, the greater shame for you!”
Bembo was red now, and it was not from wine; but I would not cease in
order to let him speak. My own anger was kindling. I was precisely in
the mood for plain truths and cutting words.
“Let us be frank, noble friends! You know that this Christian
religion which is so often on our tongues is to us as great a legend
as that of Isis and Osiris of Egypt. If we acknowledge a deity is
He not in reality the God of Plato, not of Moses and the Nazarene?
Are not our master-philosophers and teachers from Athens, not from
Jerusalem? Our wise Bembo, I understand, has lately warned his
students against reading St. Paul because of his bad Greek. Rather
let us tell the world to withdraw from the teachings of Matthew
and Luke because they are but fair fables. Let us not depose His
Holiness--avert it, Gods!--let us rather proclaim him the leader,
the arch-hierophant of ourselves the emancipated, the lovers of the
beautiful, of the eternal verities which we grasp, not through blind
Jewish tradition, but through exalted reason. Then--_then_ we can
taunt the Germans for their credulity, when we have ceased to take
their money, and ceased to profess to believe a lie.”
I had silenced Bembo. That triumph at least was mine. Stunned by
my audacity, no one for a long moment either laughed or applauded.
Then I saw a lady--in scared fashion--crossing herself. Several of
the older cardinals were trying hard to look horrified. Then came
a little ripple of voices, half-deriding, half-approving, if not
my sentiments, at least my boldness. I stood for a moment with the
hot flush on my cheeks, my heart prompting me to say more; but
Marianna’s upraised finger commanded silence, and Chigi with ready
wit answered for the writhing Bembo.
“Monsignore the Secretary, I am sure, spoke in haste and without
intent to insult the ancestors or fatherland of so illustrious a
gentleman as the Conte di Palaestro. As for the latter’s answer, let
us all confess it was not unprovoked. In the heat of such a sortie no
man can be required to weigh all he utters. The Conte would hardly
subscribe to-morrow to all he has expressed to-night. Heaven forbid,
we should either undervalue or overrate his words! Being no learned
classicist, as are these highly esteemed gentlemen, I cry their
pardon if I beg them to forego this discussion before this most noble
and virtuous company.”
I had shot my arrow, and readily bowed assent. Bembo muttered
something about “having no desire to wound the Conte’s honor.”
Monsignore Priario and a couple of other ecclesiastics looked at me
rather blackly, but I felt none the worse for that. The conversation
became general, everybody steering clear of dangerous subjects. The
Prince of Colonna explained the latest discoveries of the Spaniards
in the Indies and the possibility of a great increase in the supply
of gold. Raffaello spoke charmingly about his latest project for the
reconstruction of San Pietro. Bembo--quite mollified--told of the
rediscovery of a manuscript of Plautus at the Milanese library, while
Rocca aired his ingenious theory of how the ancient gourmands served
oysters. The night, or rather the morning, advanced. The candles were
changed; more wine was passed--although nobody was drinking really to
excess. We were so charmed by our own wit that no one noted the hour
when we dismissed the subject of the Laocoön, lately installed in the
Vatican Belvidere, and took up the theory of Pindar, as propounded by
the Bishop of Montebello,--“that a noble action is worthless to the
doer, unless it is accompanied by the praise of his fellow-men.” On
this point we all,--including the ladies,--had much to say, and I was
being charmed by the manner wherewith Madonna Marianna entered into
the argument, when I was diverted by the touch of a servant.
“Many pardons, Eccellenza; this gentleman says he must speak to you.”
Looking about I saw the guards-captain, Fabriano, our companion on
the boat ride, and leaped up immediately.
“Happily met, good fellow,” I cried, holding out my hand; “the wine
has loosed our tongues and unsealed our wit and wisdom. Here, boy--a
chair and a glass for the noble captain.”
He did not take my hand, and gazed at me awkwardly.
“Pest take me, Gualtiero,” he began at last; “I scarce know what to
say. I have come here as an official, not as a friend. Be sure I come
with all the reluctance in the world.”
“But my dear fellow, I don’t see why you look at me as gingerly as
San Giorgio at his dragon.”
He seized me by the sleeve, then blurted,
“The fiends make me out with it! I am come to demand your sword and
take you to the Castle of San Angelo. The governor of the city has
ordered it.”
“To arrest me?--” I was indeed dazed.
“Come quietly--at least away from here,” he urged; “I will explain--”
But here the Contessa della Valle, who had listened like a cat to
everything, gave a little shriek.
“Arrested! Conte di Palaestro arrested! To San Angelo? Oh!
impossible--”
The babel of conversation ceased instantly, and Chigi interposed
without delay.
“You arrest the Conte, Fabriano? My guest? Monstrous! Incredible! An
outrageous intrusion: explain!”
“Most noble banker,” returned the Captain, very ill at ease, “be
assured I undertook this disagreeable task only that another less
delicate officer might not perform it. I grieve to inform you that
the Conte is charged with attempting to procure the murder of the
Archbishop of Bari--”
“Murder Monsignore di Bari?” came as one cry from all over the room.
“Calm yourselves, illustrious ladies and gentlemen. The Archbishop is
unharmed. Nevertheless, I must execute my orders.”
“At least,” spoke Chigi peremptorily, “you are to satisfy us that
this charge is not a mere fiction, some ill-timed jest, aimed at the
Conte di Palaestro?”
As I glanced towards Marianna and Rocca I could see them both
flushed, disturbed and whispering excitedly one with the other. Then
Madonna caught my eye and laid her hand upon her lips. There was dead
silence whilst all craned and listened to Fabriano’s answer.
“Noble friends--believe me I did not announce this thing touching his
Excellency the Conte as something proved, but only alleged. The known
facts are these. This evening the Archbishop left his apartments near
the Pantheon to keep an appointment with a lady in a garden near the
Colosseum. He had had affairs with bravoes lately, and as precaution
wore a ring shirt of proof. Luckily, too, he was followed by several
trusty valets, among whom were two old soldiers from the Milanese
wars. Passing a narrow street by San Pietro in Vincoli several men
were observed following. Bari proceeded and the fellows disappeared;
but when near their destination, on turning a convent wall, suddenly,
three men ran out against them with drawn swords. The leader sprang
on Bari and would infallibly have pierced him, but his sword was
snapped on the ring mail. The recoil of the unfortunate stroke threw
the murderer off his balance. He fell, and instantly his comrades
fled into the darkness. Bari’s servants flung themselves upon the
prostrate bravo and secured him. The Archbishop, finding himself
unhurt, at once caused his people to conduct the prisoner to the
Governor of Rome at San Angelo. The captive was promptly recognized
as the desperate and notorious Ettore Orosi. Knowing that such a
man only attempted murders for a price, he was at once confronted
with the rack, to secure the name of his employer. After a certain
hesitancy, he gave way before the threats, and presently mentioned
our illustrious Conte; yet told his story with such plausibility that
the Governor could only yield to the hot demands of Bari and direct
me to summon the Conte to San Angelo.”
This somewhat long recital had given me time to recover my wits, and
I divined quickly the signals cast me by Marianna and Rocca. I drew
myself up a little haughtily.
“Worthy Fabriano,” I said, “I exonerate you in this strange affair,
but as an immediate and noble vassal of the Holy See, I deny the
right of the Governor of San Angelo to hale me before him on the
witness of a professional bravo. Let me be taken not to San Angelo
but to the Vatican; let me be examined at once by the Pope himself.”
“Impossible,” Fabriano began to object; “the lateness of the hour, my
clear orders--”
But Rocca stepped forward. “I will take it upon myself to shield you
from all consequences. Let the Conte be conducted instantly to His
Holiness.”
“If the Cardinale di Rocca pledges,” bowed the captain, yielding; and
so the matter was concluded. I could see well enough how Rocca was
anxious for himself, and Marianna for her father in the business, and
vastly preferred the sifting of the approachable Pope, rather than of
the stern-browed Governor. As for myself, I was resolved to shield
Forli and Rocca if I could, without putting my own affairs in too
much jeopardy. Plainly Orosi had tried to screen his real employer
by accusing me, and my wishes for the renowned bravo were not the
kindest.
The feast broke up as I was led out. I pitied Messere Chigi. What an
unlucky ending for a most carefully planned supper--and how all the
tongues in Rome would wag in the morning!
CHAPTER IV
THE JUDGMENT OF LEO DE’ MEDICI
The captain had a closed carriage ready, and did not do me the
indignity of taking away my sword. Marianna and Rocca had gone out
simultaneously, and started ahead in one of Chigi’s vehicles, hastily
harnessed. A messenger was sent to San Angelo to summon Bari to the
Vatican, and ask that Orosi be sent thither under due guard. My
custodian, an excellent-hearted cavalier, spent most of the ride
across the now dark and silent city, assuring me that there was
nothing to fear, that the charges of Orosi were absurd, and that
the Pope was all benignity in every case where his kinsfolk did not
interfere to arouse him. I, however, knowing the plot better, foresaw
trouble in clearing myself without implicating Forli, especially
as the bravo would doubtless say anything to save his neck.
Nevertheless, I took a certain grim satisfaction in realizing that
Forli’s unsavory plot was thwarted.
“No,” I asserted to myself, almost aloud, “I do not think that I will
soon be forced to become the Archbishop of Bari!”
So we went on, till the wheels rolled into the court of the Vatican.
A few torches made the great pile of buildings rise darkly above us.
A subaltern of the Swiss guards threw open the door. I descended
with the captain. Rocca was there already, having put his horses at
their speed, and at a signal from him my custodian conducted me up
the long staircases, and along the half-lighted galleries, until
we came to a line of yawning gentlemen-chamberlains and flunkies
outside the private apartments of His Holiness; and after some delay
Messere Paris di Grassis, the Master of Ceremonies, and two other
green-cassocked ushers, came forward to demand our wishes.
I let Rocca do the negotiating. The worthy Paris’s protests against
disturbing the Pope were presently beaten down; but before we
were admitted another group had joined us,--my accuser, Bari, in
civilian’s dress, and still flushed and excited, besides a squad
of soldiers with the valiant Orosi pinioned in their midst. The
Archbishop’s smooth, olive face darkened ominously when he glanced
at me, but Fabriano clapped a kindly hand on my shoulder, and we
exchanged no defiances. Then with a little rumble the doors were
thrown open, and Monsignore Paris was calling:--
“You may enter, Signori.”
The scene was not unfamiliar. The high, brilliantly frescoed room
was lighted by a score of lamps swinging from silver chains, a dozen
prelates and court gentlemen were lounging on divans around the
chamber, and conversing in polite whispers. In the centre of the room
was a round table covered with white velvet, about which were three
low chairs occupied by Forli and two other cardinals. On the table
lay cards and a goodly pile of golden scudi. Directly facing the
door, upon a high armchair, sat Leo de’ Medici.
“His Eminence of Rocca, Monsignore di Bari and the Conte di
Palaestro,” announced Paris’s clear voice, “crave audience with His
Holiness upon a matter admitting no delay.”
We entered in a little group and stood in respectful attention
until the Pope--disturbed in the dealing of a new game of his
favorite _primiera_--could recover from his slight surprise. The
Maltese poodle at his knee rose, begging and barking for one of the
bonbons on the stand at his lord’s elbow. The Pope stared at us, his
near-sighted, glassy eyes starting prominently out of his large,
florid face. His light hair was covered by a white skullcap, and
from under his red stole peeped the scarlet slippers with the golden
cross on the right foot. It took a minute for him to fidget his thick
body in the armchair, reach with his much beringed hand a dainty to
the dog, and fumble for his eyeglass. He surveyed us briefly, and at
last in his usual brisk and pleasant manner began:--
“Well met, well met--Rocca, Bari, Palaestro. Good hands all of you! I
am sure these noble cardinals here will be glad to have you replace
them, especially as I seem to have won most of their money. And how
have you spent the evening? I hear Chigi gave one of his charming
suppers. I trust the ladies’ toilets were elegant.”
He paused to cast another bonbon to the dog.
“May your Holiness be graciously pleased,” began Rocca in a
constrained tone. “I fear we cannot usurp their Eminences’ places at
your table. A little difference has arisen between Monsignore di Bari
and the Conte di Palaestro which only your Holiness can arbitrate.”
“A difference,--excellent!” the Pope’s eyes brightened. “Some matter
of Latin versification, no doubt. I heard yesterday that Bari was
preparing some excellent pentameters.”
“I grieve to say, your Holiness,” spoke the Archbishop, abruptly,
“our ‘differences’ touch quite another business. The illustrious
Conte di Palaestro has hired this bravo Orosi here to take my life,
and but for my good mail shirt, I would have been dead these three
hours!”
“Murder? Hired bravoes?” the Pope’s thick features paled at the words
of ill-omen. “Impossible! Why, man--all Rome knows the Conte’s worthy
German scruples. Impossible, I say!”
“I can convince your Holiness,” asseverated Bari. “The Pope surely
knows this Orosi’s reputation. The Governor of San Angelo can be
witness both to his identity and his character. He was caught
red-handed in the deed, and has confessed. As a prelate of the
Church, if not as your friend, I demand your Holiness’s punishment
upon his hirer, the Conte di Palaestro.”
“Pest take the business!” cried the Pope, casting his cards upon the
table. “Was ever a quiet evening so spoiled? Well--Gualtiero, why
don’t you speak? What have you to say?”
“I say,” I rejoined brusquely, “that the Pope knows me long enough
to make this monstrous charge fall of its own weight. I did not hire
this bravo to murder Monsignore di Bari.”
“Bear witness, your Holiness,” cried the Archbishop, triumphantly;
“he does not deny, however, knowing of a plot to take my life.”
“Come, come,” exclaimed Leo, half testily; “let us not act like
hasty schoolboys. Since you are safe and sound, Bari, don’t grow
vindictive. We will sift the whole business; first let us examine the
assassin.”
During all this dialogue Forli and Rocca had been whispering, and now
Forli came to my elbow.
“A good heart, Gualtiero!” he shot in my ear; “do not betray me. All
will end well.”
“But better never begun,” I darted back. Now, however, the Pope began
to interrogate the prisoner, and all our attention was concentrated
upon Orosi.
To do the bravo credit he stuck to his lie with admirable dexterity.
Clearly enough he understood that Forli’s gratitude for his perverted
tale would far offset any anger of mine. He swore circumstantially
that I had summoned him to an interview that afternoon, had
represented that Bari was crossing me in the matter of a lady; and
then we had arranged for the Archbishop’s removal. He named places,
persons, and times with inimitable plausibility. The exalted rank
of his questioner disturbed him not the least. When asked as to
his experience in such matters, he looked upon Bari with capital
nonchalance, and avowed that “he had helped eleven better than
Monsignore into purgatory,--praised be Santo Paolo!--for had he not
learned his art in the school of _il illustrissimo_ Caesare Borgia?”
When all direct attempts to shake his story had failed, the Pope
turned on me.
“And now your denial, Conte?”
“As before. I swear I did not employ this cut-throat. His story is a
tissue of lies.”
“He said you talked with him at your lodgings before you left
for Chigi’s. If you did not, who were with you at that time, to
substantiate your denial?”
“I will not deceive your Holiness, only my own servants.”
“And where were you before that?”
“At the palazzo of the Cardinale di Forli.”
“And who was there?”
I felt the flush mount to my temples. I never cursed my German blood
as I cursed it then. Why did my tongue trip at a well-placed lie? I
knew my reputation for blunt Northern veracity. Why dared I not trade
on it?
“Madonna Marianna, of course,” I answered, sparring for time.
“Naturally; and the Forli servants, and some of your own, perhaps.
Who else?”
“I do not recollect. I was not there long.”
But the words did not come boldly; and simultaneously I saw Bari’s
keen face flash from me to Forli, then back with a sudden gleam of
intelligence.
“I demand a better answer, your Holiness,” he thrust in. “The Conte
is not making a full answer. He _does_ recollect. Command that he
declare upon his honor whom he saw at that palazzo.”
“Can you answer the Archbishop?” said the Pope, with unwonted
firmness. He was a shrewd judge of men when once aroused.
I looked His Holiness fairly in the eye.
“I regret to pique Monsignore’s curiosity,” I said, “but I cannot
reply to his question.”
You could have counted twelve ere any in the company spoke a word.
They had all pressed near to catch my disclosure. Not one could miss
the point of the question and answer. Forli was looking downward
sheepishly. I knew he was execrating my hesitancy to prevaricate.
Then the Pope began again--ominously gentle.
“I trust you appreciate the unfortunate results of withholding
anything. If you cannot swear you saw no stranger at the Cardinal’s,
whom did you see? Describe as precisely as possible if you cannot
identify him.”
I glanced furiously at Rocca and Forli. I was more angry at their
involving me in their fell project, than fearful of its consequences.
“Your Holiness, I regret it, but my answer is final. I can say
nothing as to anything that occurred at the palazzo of the Cardinal.”
Bari--an irascible man--threw down his biretta in the Pope’s presence.
“I call your Holiness to witness! To-night my life was attempted.
By the confession of the assassin the Conte was his employer. The
Conte’s denial is most imperfect. By plain implications from his
silences it is likely others were in the plot. I know well certain
high personages,”--he darted a glance upon Forli and Rocca, “have
envied the favor awarded me by your Holiness, and coveted the
prebends and benefices you have deigned to bestow upon me. If the
Pope is not a lord merely over bravoes and bandits, I demand--”
But Forli had already whispered to a fellow-cardinal, and he to the
Master of Ceremonies. Now good Messere Paris stepped forward with
uplifted hand.
“May it please the Pope! The very reverend Archbishop is about,
I fear, to say many harsh things, calculated--if bruited through
Rome, to spread even through Christendom, to the great scandal of
the Church. He is saved. _Laus Deo!_ The bravo is taken. _Laus Deo
in excelsis!_ But this being the case I pray your Holiness to act
delicately in opening a matter in which more may be involved than the
mere avenging of Monsignore.”
“Well said,” uttered an influential cardinal, in audible whisper.
“Yet I,” asserted Bari, “have been all but murdered. I insist--”
“_Pax_”! ordered the Pope, moving uneasily on his cushions. “Was ever
there a less happy case! Bari must be vindicated? Right. The Church
must be spared a scandal? Right. But how do both. Have I Solon,
Periander, Thales and all the other Seven Sages in my council? How
could you do this, Forli? how could you?” The cardinal addressed
tried hard not to seem to comprehend. “What lack of judgment?
What lack of consideration for me? And now you have involved our
unfortunate Gualtiero--”
The Holy Father took refuge in a new demand by the poodle to be fed,
and stopped to satisfy the dog.
“At least,” urged Bari, his eyes like daggers, “there is no scandal
to the Church in the case of the gallant Conte,--to all intents my
murderer. Let _him_ pay out his penalty.”
But I had now measured the situation, and broke my silence.
“Hear me, your Holiness. It is true I am so unluckily situated that
to refute this bravo’s story I must involve others whom I would,
as an honorable friend, fain spare. I will not whine abjectly for
leniency: but I will remind the Pope of the day when not the
Holy Father, but the then Cardinale de’ Medici, was banished from
Florence, was driven with insults from Bologna, but found refuge and
true friendship at my grandfather’s castle at Palaestro.”
“I remember,” muttered the Pope, “I remember.”
“Then I entreat your Holiness, in whatever you decide to recall this
service in dealing with your protector’s grandson.”
Bari would have charged in again, but Leo forbade him with a gesture.
A minute of tense silence, and then the Pope’s face relaxed. I knew
that he had reached a relatively merciful decision. He cleared his
throat.
“A sad business, Gualtiero; a sad business, Forli. Very bunglingly
managed as I think I see through it. Not that I applaud the attack
on poor Bari,--Jove forbid!--but then there can be a certain finesse
even in great crimes. This Orosi is not nearly as redoubtable a
villain as he boasts--to that I’ll swear. Well,--what’s to be done? A
pity surely to have Bari in such jeopardy and no reparation. I must
mollify him. A good prebend at Orvieto fell vacant last week. You
have applied for it, Forli: but you must withdraw your petition now.
It shall go to Bari--eleven hundred ducats income. A fair salve for
that sword thrust--eh?” The Pope’s eyes gleamed, and the Archbishop
looked decidedly appeased. “I’ll not press Rocca whether _he_ knows
anything of this business, though mayhap he ought to share the
penalty with Forli. And now as to this bravo--a sturdy rascal, a very
sturdy rascal! What a pity not in a more honest calling! And yet he
were better hanged.”
“I cry your Holiness’s mercy,” began Orosi, dropping deftly on his
knees, and squeezing the drops out of his eyes. “I swear by the
Mother of God and all Angels that I have resolved, if spared this
once, to devote all my days to the war against the Turkish infidels.
Peccavi! Peccavi! The compassion of your Holiness is known to all the
world.”
“Tush!” commanded the Pope, almost laughing now. “Rise up! Do you
think I’ll spare you for vows like that? I was only wondering whether
you would prove useful to my kinsmen in Florence.”
“Ah, yes! yes! Holiness. There is much that a man of my ability can
do in Florence. I will be faithful forever. My gratitude--”
“Stand him aside,” ordered Leo; “at least he needn’t hang to-night.”
And then he fixed his eyes on me.
“So you are left, Gualtiero? Let me see. Did the company at Chigi’s
hear the whole story, the bravo’s accusation and all the rest?”
“The greater part, your Holiness,” said Fabriano.
“_Misericordia!_ It will be all over Rome then in the morning. If
it had only first come to me privately! Surely you see that I can’t
pardon you now. What an unlucky position! And you desire to make no
defence? Well--how can I seem to temper justice with mercy, and yet
punish you? I believe you have a castle and estates in Germany?”
I bowed assent.
“Then it will not be so bad. Naturally you wish to visit them
ere very long. Why not at present? We shall miss you here,
Gualtiero--miss you at cards and at the hunt, but _Deo volente_ not
forever. Your Germans are a credulous folk, but I have travelled
among them. They are not so vile as many of us suppose. So, then, my
decision. Give ear.” His tone grew formal. “Seeing that the Conte di
Palaestro has been unable to clear himself of prompting an attempt
upon the Archbishop of Bari, I do declare that he has laid himself
liable to the penalties of a great crime: but in the paternal mercy,
never failing to the Holy See, and lest the full uncovering of the
crime breed a great scandal in the Church, I do remit the major part
of the punishment, and command that he depart to-morrow for his
German estates, giving his word not to reënter Italy for one year,
nor to return to Rome for two years.”
“Your Holiness is very indulgent,” I said humbly. The Pope thrust out
his right slipper upon the footstool. I knelt and kissed the shoe,
and then bowed myself out into the antechamber. The card players
dispersed. A little group was gathering around Bari to congratulate
him upon his new prebend.
“Lucky fellow,” Rocca was saying in my ear. “How loath the Pope was
to do anything to you! With his chronic need for money he might have
fined you fifty thousand scudi.”
Forli, too, had like felicitations over the merciful outcome, but I
answered both coldly. “I owe you no thanks, Eminenzas. This has been
your plot, but my penalty. I warned in advance against your scheme.
But for that sense of honor which you so little cultivate, and which
you would never have exercised in my behalf, I could have passed the
debt on to you, and gone scot free.”
“We are grateful, Gualtiero, we are grateful,” Forli kept repeating.
“Orosi did his work perfectly. No one is really to blame. But, _Dii
Immortales!_ who could have dreamed that dolt of a Bari had wit
enough to wear a chain shirt!”
* * * * *
A little later, in the gray dawn, before I left the Vatican, I stood
alone for a little while with Marianna. I will not tell how she wept,
accused herself and her father a thousand times for the “blunder,”
or how I vowed to carry her miniature ever with me and to write from
Padua and Augsburg, and again as soon as I reached my castle of
Regenstein.
“I will think of you always, always!” she kept declaring.
“You will soon have other lovers, Madonna,” I said with sad
truthfulness.
“Never such a one as you, Gualtiero. Never such a one as you! I
will never forget you. And who knows but that I may come even into
your frozen North in search of you? For remember my saying: you are
Italian, never German. You belong to the South, to us forever!”
“Nevertheless,” I answered, “at present I fare toward the Northland.”
Then I told her that after all we were both young, and this was only
a passing cloud across the long summer of life before us, and that
after a year I could at least receive her at Palaestro. I need not
repeat all that we said and did at the parting.
And so ended my last night in Rome, not for two, but for more than
three, years.
BOOK I
THE AWAKENING
CHAPTER V
I COME TO SCHLOSS REGENSTEIN
The copy of a letter written soon after my arrival in Germany to my
old friend and correspondent, Rocca, tells at least what I wished my
associates at Rome to know of my journey and its surroundings. It is
couched in the style much affected by the virtuosi of the day; and
although I have come to be ashamed enough of such literary vanities,
I allow the letter to stand that it may be a true chronicle of at
least one person--myself.
“... Pardon indeed, my honored Rocca, that I now write you in
mere Italian, and not in Latin. But my books have not yet arrived
from Augsburg, and while it is indeed possible I could write in
the classic tongue without the immortal illustrations of pure
Latinity before me, I fear I might lapse into some monkish idiom
unless I could refer to my Cicero and Statius. However, I do not
intend to imitate Agrippina and Trajan (not to name Cæsar) and
recite my deeds in formal commentaries, but simply to declare
that your friend is in good health, and so far as a banished man
may be, in good spirits.
“Here I am, then, in my mountain eyrie, snug as an eagle above
intruding ken. Conceive me too as sovereign lord over all human
creatures about me, possessed of right of pit and gallows, and
expected to prove my princely blood by administering frequent
floggings with my own hand, and accounted not a little lacking in
spirit if I fail to crowd my overlarge dungeons with many victims
of my capricious displeasure. In short, within my little kingdom
I find that I am possessed of all the absolute tyranny of the
Grand Turk or the Great Prince of Muscovy.
“The tale of my journey over the Alps to Augsburg and Erfurt,
I must omit, knowing you have had your surfeit of stories of
travellers. I will simply remark that the inns had even as many
hungry fleas as I had feared (excelling even their ferocious
comrades of Naples), the cookery was bad, the folk we met, even
of the better sort, were oafish: and Andrea and his underlings
have had their heads repeatedly broken (and have retorted in
kind) in brawls with sheep-pated inn servants. Indeed, when I
look on my poor Andrea and observe his hang-dog countenance as he
goes among these Northerners, I feel that for him the expiation
of his sins in purgatory has begun already.
“Shortly after leaving Erfurt we had our first real adventure.
We ran upon a band of armed villains led by a fellow styled a
‘Ritter’ (_i.e._ with some pretence to coat-armor) in the act
and article of rifling the wagons of certain Halle merchants
who were sadly watching the plundering with their arms strapped
behind them. Modesty forbids me to tell of my own feats in
combat; nevertheless, Andrea afterward proclaimed that I laid
about me like a veritable Orlando. In any case, we dispersed the
rascals, rescued the merchants, and I pinked the Ritter through
the shoulder. Afterwards when we trussed him up to carry onward
to Nordhausen and to summary justice, the fellow professed no
sorrow for his misdeeds, but asserted his rights to plunder along
that highway. ‘From time immemorial his family had possessed the
right to plunder every cart which broke its axle upon the road
betwixt certain limits, and assuredly _that_ cart had so broken
its axle. Besides, every Ritter now and then made his horse “bite
off the purses of travellers.”’
“All this gave me a taste of the country I was entering. From
Nordhausen, as I fared northward, the country became ever more
wild and rocky. Not sublime like the Alps; not softly sensuous
like the south of our dear Italy; but one green hill after
another, each a little higher, each a little steeper than its
predecessor, until at last you wind in and out the mountains,
following the line of some green rushing brook, while high above,
the great ridges of pointed pines rise line upon line, like the
spear points of a serried army.
“So we plunged into the Harz, over hill and dale, past castles
and brown-thatched hamlets. Sometimes a red-roofed village, with
its peaked parish spire would loom before us; sometimes a little
chapel upon a soaring crag. The country folk were haler and
brawnier than the lowlanders we were quitting. We met a great
flock of black sheep, with a grizzled, blue-coated shepherd,
filling all the roadway and crowding us nigh across the wall.
We passed five ox-teams pulling great creaking loads of hay, so
high that the latter seemed to dwarf both the double yoke and
the sturdy driver who was guiding the whole vast mass with a
deft touch of his goad. Again there was the melodious tinkling
of fifty cow-bells, as the long herd came plodding down the
pine-hung way.
“And as we wound deeper into the mountains, past one red-roofed
village after another, and saw the sturdy forms of the men,
straight as the firs above them; saw the blond, clear beauty of
the farmer maids, with their long, fair hair wound round their
heads like shining wreaths, I confess the blood began to stir
within me, and despite the remembrance of Rome and Florence and
Venice and the rest, I began to find the upland air all spring
and sparkle, and to think the German speech less harsh; yes, even
to say under breath, ‘I will never mourn that my father sprang
from this North.’
“After we passed Hasselfelde and entered upon the last stage of
the journey, the country grew yet wilder. Over a clearing we saw
the red coat of a startled deer go flashing through the pine
stumps. A wolfish wood-cutter stopped and looked at us hard as we
approached, as if wondering whether he had not best scamper up
the hillside out of reach of our arquebuses. We crossed a roaring
torrent by a rough timber bridge that swayed uncannily under our
horses. Then at a sudden turn in the rocks we came face to face
with half a score of men on big lumbering steeds, and clad in
black and very nondescript armor. They bore halberds big enough
to fell oxen, and Andrea--our vanguard,--had his firelock ready
in a trice, ere I could call out ‘hold!’ But the foremost rider,
a mighty man, too big for his tall roan horse, came straight on,
and his grizzled mustaches, his wolf-white teeth, and the long
scar over his forehead, I remembered from boyhood days right well.
“‘Adolf!’ I cried.
“By some magic instantly the whole band reined in, and the ten
giants leaping down with direful clatter began to bend and scrape.
“‘Your Countly Grace! Your Countly Grace!’ they all chanted
together, and Adolf then begun to shuffle up to me, seizing my
hand, kissing it in a slobbering way. Next he must needs tell in
harshest mountain German, how he had always sworn that I would
come back like a Regensteiner to the old schloss; that he had
received my advance messenger; that he had kept the schloss true
and fast even as my fathers had loved it; that there was a great
boar in the Tannenwald waiting my hunting; that the dogs were in
excellent fettle; that he had in the dungeon two poachers whom he
was sure I would enjoy hanging, or perhaps I preferred breaking
them on the wheel; and that--
“But here I shook off his bearlike embraces, and in what German
I had, I thanked him for his faithfulness, assured him and
his followers that I would try by my gratitude to merit their
loyalty, and that I would be delighted with their escort onward
to Schloss Regenstein. So then we rode forward, Andrea still
casting one anxious eye upon our new companions and the other
upon his well-primed arquebuse.
“How we passed the town of Blankenburg I quite forgot, and indeed
I thought of little save that I was returning to the castle of my
father’s fathers. I knew that Adolf and his company were taking
mental account of their new lord; of his Milanese hosiery, his
Florentine mantle, his Venice corselet, and his Bologna bonnet.
More quizzical, too, I knew they were of my smooth chin and
smooth white hands, so unlike their mighty spades: but I was
resolved to teach them in due time they had a true lord to rule
over them, and kept my peace, and thus we fared toward the castle.
“There it rose on its green crest above the foothills, with its
gaunt battlements and towers; and I meditated, as I neared it,
on all the iron-handed, flinty-hearted ritters, my forbears, who
had ridden forth under its gates to fight their feuds, lift their
neighbors’ cattle, and strip the Magdeburg caravans, even as had
the rascal I had lately captured. Hardly two generations since,
and to be Graf von Regenstein had been to fear the Devil only a
little and God not at all, and to be the wildest lance in all
Saxony. Yet here was I,--lineal heir of those men,--returning to
my ancestral home, with its dungeons, portcullis, sally-ports,
its cavernous halls adorned with wolf-heads, bearskins, and
dingy armor! But, lo! my head was filled with the tinkling of
languishing Tuscan sonnets, and as we trudged up the hill I fell
to musing how one might describe the peaceful landscape in the
Doric of Theocritus,--true language surely for such an idyll! A
cursing in fiercest dialect, from Adolf, as his horse stumbled,
recalled me in a trice from ancient Sicily to present Harzland. I
glanced upward. We were almost beneath the fortress.
“No smug, smooth-stuccoed palazzo was Schloss Regenstein,
fashioned after Messere Bramante’s clever ideas filched from
Vitruvius. Hard and harsh reared the castle, one great jagged
mass of walls, battlements, gable roof and uncouth peak-capped
donjons,--an inchoate thing, like the savage icebergs which
sailors say course the northern seas. At first it seemed a single
shapeless creation, wrought out of unhewn rock by the primeval
giants and kobolds. Then as my awe of it began a little to wane,
the thing took on a certain order. I could distinguish the steep
winding way of hard round cobbles, the narrow drawbridge over the
dizzy moat, the portcullis hanging its spikes like the welcoming
upper fangs of a hungry monster. Behind that were walls--gray
and sheer save for ominous loopholes. Within these walls, others
still higher and more precipitous. Above these were standing what
appeared to be portions of a vast rambling house with numerous
arch-topped windows; again above this house--Ossa piled on
Pelion--were three round towers of prodigious size, and from the
tallest whipped a banner--my own green standard with the three
white boars’ heads. Upon the tower to the left dangled something
black that was swinging slowly--a skeleton hung in chains.
“I was just meditating whether I should take this fell sight
as an omen, when suddenly our approach seemed to have been
observed in the castle above. Instantly all the windows above
the battlement were crowded with faces, and right before me I
saw no grim-visaged cross-bowmen, but flaxen curls and rosy
faces,--a score of eager children, shouting their ‘_Gruss!_’ to
their strange lord and master. And then--boom! boom! boom! three
clouds of culverin smoke blew across the gate. I entered the
castle,--not the Conte di Palaestro, but the Graf von Regenstein
returning to his own.
“I passed my hand across my forehead, saying inwardly ‘At last I
am in the North.’”
* * * * *
“There is a precept, my dear Rocca, ‘When in Rome do as the
Romans do.’ An excellent rule, removing a thousand absurdities;
and its reverse is also excellent. ‘When absent from Rome,
conform yourself to your country.’ Not indeed that I would advise
imitating the rites and banquets of the fabled anthropophagi
or of other utterly outlandish speaking-animals, but I esteem
it both unwisdom and discourteous for the newcomer from one
land to another to refuse to adapt himself to the honest habits
of his hosts, assuming both have the names of decent folk and
Christians. Therefore I think I quite scandalized Andrea by the
way in which I drained a great horn of atrocious Harz-brewed
ale which the fat and worthy seneschal’s wife brought me when I
leaped down in the castle court. And from that time on I strove
diligently to appear, if not a right German, at least a compliant
guest. Much do I fear I have offended the loyal folk around me;
as when I so far forgot myself as to curse the heavy feather beds
they had heaped up for me in the state chamber, and to adjure
Andrea by all the saints to bring me my comfortable travelling
pallet. Likewise the next morning I trod on Adolf’s toes most
sorely when I hinted my displeasure at suffering so many swine to
root around the castle yard, delving in innumerable dunghills.
“‘But your Grace--may I humbly present to you--the honest pigs
have rooted in these dunghills since Regenstein was a castle.
’Twere depriving them of an established privilege--an undoubted
right. Whither shall they go?’
“‘To the sty or the field where God intended them. If I am king
here, I will change their evil privilege, will-you, nill-you.’
“‘It shall be done, your Grace,’ grumbled the bear; but under his
mustachios he kept muttering, ‘Oh, these Welschland (Italian)
customs! What a lord we have over us! _Liebe Gott!_ To remove the
pigs!’
“But these are mere incidents. I can hardly call myself at home
as yet, or master of my castle and destinies until my books have
come from Augsburg. I have found some chambers in the fortress
which can be fitted up very tolerably after Andrea has arranged
my tapestries from Paris. I have had as yet time simply to
assure myself that Regenstein is a very Emperor of strongholds.
I promise myself a thousand interesting nights diverting myself
with the tales of raids, forays, ghosts, goblins, witches,
romances, fair and foul, in short, of adventures of every
conceivable sort which every soul in the castle is eager to pour
out to me whenever I deign my august ear to listen: so if I can
only find paper enough in this place I can readily vie with
Messere Boccaccio’s tales in the _Decamerone_. I have explored
all the nooks and crannies of this vast pile of stone I call my
mansion. Adolf has displayed for my admiration the long passage
hewn in the living rock leading down to the privy sally-port; the
numerous store chambers embedded likewise in the rocky bowels
of the mountain. He has taken me out upon the topmost tower, by
dizzy ladders over scaffoldings whence the rooks and daws fled
noisily, and showed me the whole broad countryside spread out
like a map of foreign seas: far to the east over the low hills he
showed me the spires of the famed abbey church of Quedlenburg;
to the west the nestling village of Heimburg, ‘your Grace’s own
peculiar domain land,’ as he explained; to north the wide flat
plain with the turrets of Halberstadt dim in the distance; and to
south the whole wide green hill-land of the Harz, growing bolder
and bolder as the eye followed the contours into the distance.
“‘Noble landscape,’ quoth I, in reply to his obvious demand for
praise; ‘and well may my fathers have loved it. But this town to
southward, with its castle upon a rock, rising like a worthy peer
to Regenstein--what is its name? I have forgotten.’
“‘Blankenburg, your Grace, both town and castle.’
“‘A castle of the Duke of Brunswick, or of a fellow noble like
myself?’
“‘Of the free and immediate Counts of Blankenburg, your Grace;
even of your own condition.’
“‘Close neighbors we are, I vow, unless there is abundant love
between us.’
“Adolf gave a great horse laugh.
“‘Ei; by St. Martin there were lively times in your Grace’s
grandfather’s day--Graf Ludwig’s, I mean! Feud all the year
long,--cutting down of beech trees, houghing of cattle, a good
many peasants slaughtered, once a merry passage at arms in which
we lost six stout men and they eight. But all is quiet now.
The present Graf loves his beer and his hunt too well for long
quarrels; and again, the Duke of Brunswick might interfere. Your
Grace has nothing to dread. Besides, we have these.’ He pointed
significantly to ‘Wake-up’ and ‘Roaring-Mol’--two bell-mouthed
wall-pieces that grinned harmlessly over the parapet.
“‘We shall not use them. I am entirely satisfied to have a
nobleman of old family for neighbor. And has he no wife and
family?’
“‘The Graf von Blankenburg,’ replied Adolf, as if under some
constraint, ‘is a very peculiar lord. Your Grace will learn his
habits later. His son Moritz is a most worthy young ritter, and
his unmarried daughter, my Lady Ilsa, is reported pious and
comely.’
“‘My Lady Ilsa,’ cried I with a laugh. ‘Excellent; I see the
beginnings of a pleasant adventure already!’
“But here the blowing of a horn warned me of the visit of a
Hamburg pedlar to the castle to chaffer for pins and ribbons with
the maids, and I made haste to indite this letter that he might
start it on its southward journey. Salute Madonna Marianna for
me, and tell her I stand in no danger of this ‘pious and comely’
Graf’s daughter, and I pray you also to commend me to all my many
friends at Rome.”
CHAPTER VI
ILSA OF THE HARZ
I will quote no more letters to Rocca. Truth to tell, by my praises
addressed to him of the beauty of the land and by my hints of
admiration for the rough virtues of the people, I was but heartening
myself up, as do men when they sing lustily ere plunging into the
battle. Seldom have I spent three more heartsick, homesick weeks
than the first three that crept by at Schloss Regenstein, after the
novelty had waned. Some excitement there was on the second day when
I had uncovered a deep but dry well, and we found a goodly quantity
of bones at the bottom--relics no doubt of obstinate merchants who
withheld their proper ransoms. But the tingle of discovery soon
passed. My eyes were offended with a thousand uncouth domestic
sights, my ears by the constant gutturals of my vassals’ dialect,
my nose--enough that good Herr Adolf and his fellow myrmidons had
many things to learn,--at least I forced them to remove the great
dung heap that was stacked right under my chamber windows. Ah!
Marianna--if you would have seen my loyalty and longing for the south
rekindle, you should have seen me then!
As a chief misery I had no person of my own condition in life with
whom I could exchange a word. A few inquiries developed that the Graf
von Blankenburg and his children were visiting some noble kinsmen
beyond Halberstadt. There was no other man entitled to coat-armor
in the region, nor even any half-learned monk who could fence with
me in bad Latin. Heavy rains delayed the coming of my principal
baggage from Augsburg, and kept me far from my dear books. Father
Joseph, the castle chaplain, was too deaf and doddering to do more
than shuffle through his chapel masses,--which I honored by my
absence. Even the great boar whereof Adolf promised the hunting,
disappeared when we sent out the beaters, and we returned from the
chase with two miserable hares, scarce worth the pursuing. To add
to my unhappiness Andrea poured out his complaints day and night,
consigning Regenstein, Harzland, Germany, and all dwellers therein
to instant and eternal perdition, quarrelling with all the maids and
varlets in the castle, and making it not the least of their offences
that they did not understand his anathemas vociferated in fiercest
and most idiomatic Tuscan.
And then came a day after the storms; a day of calm green and golden
beauty the like whereof I thought I had never met on sea or land.
A warm sweet air seemed to come sweeping down from the mountains;
an air of growing leaves and bursting flowers; an air of talking
oaks and great pines sighing like the waves of a wide green ocean.
All the Harzland was pushing back the mists, and calling “come out
hither!” And as if in answer to the call I felt my spirits rising,
my feet stirring almost perforce under me. Many, many times since I
have heard that call--the call of the summer forest of the North,--a
call no lush and luxuriant Southland wood can find voice to utter!
a call of cool streams leaping over cool rocks, while the great
sun warms the fragrant ferns above them. And as often as that call
comes, a dozen times during springtime and summer, I am become like
the bird who has wintered afar in the tropics, but at the bidding of
the season must away. So succumbing to the gentle magic of the hour,
I found myself alone, happily alone, and happy to be lost in the
greenwood, wandering over the hills by Schloss Regenstein.
How long I wandered I do not know. I had my rapier--I feared nothing.
I had bread in my wallet--I would not grow hungry. I drank a clear
draught from a moss-clustered spring gushing out of the primeval
rock. I started a squirrel and sent him scampering away across the
upper branches. I followed for a long way into the thickets some
calling thrush that lured me onward and onward like a sweet-voiced
will-o’-the-wisp. At last I brought myself upon a little path that
led upward beside a trickling brook, over ferns and bluebells;
with here and there the tracks of some loitering deer. The sun was
striking in golden slants through a clearing, and I sat down upon a
fallen log to listen to the rustling melody of the greenwood. There
I fell naturally into a musing. My gift of sonnet-making came back
to me. I was wandering into some imitation of Petrarco in praise of
the glories of the forest, when I detected a sound--a human sound.
Nothing to alarm, that was certain, though I confess in that strange
woodland I clapped a hand instinctively upon my hilt. It was the
voice of a woman--as I guessed, of a young girl. Not wishing to have
her burst suddenly upon me, I stepped lightly back into a thicket and
waited.
The singer was quite out of sight, although her clear crooning music
proclaimed that she was close at hand. Nearer she came, and first I
saw a pair of white feet and ankles twinkling in and out amid the
twigs and grasses,--feet that Messere Raffaello would have rejoiced
to get for model. I saw the feet while yet the screen of beech
saplings hid her face. Her song was in broad Harz dialect. I caught
glimpses of a loose blue frock. Then into the open she passed, and as
I stepped from my covert I had a sight of a daintily poised head,
two long braids of golden hair, cheeks exceeding red, eyes exceeding
blue, and such prettily curved lines of face and throat that they
seemed blooming into life from some Vatican canvass. A sight for a
moment only. Back went the head like a startled doe’s. The cheeks
flashed to scarlet. She drew up with abrupt pride, as well she might,
upon seeing a totally strange gentleman step from a covert.
I was half ashamed at my action, but reflected that a Harz peasant
maid was not likely to prove timid or prudish.
“Fair greetings, my fine lass,” I said in my best German; “this is
truly a pleasant day to go walking in the greenwood.”
She surveyed me very steadily, then to my infinite surprise crossed
herself upon the breast.
“I think,” said she, looking at me with great soberness, “that you
are the Master Devil. But I warn you, you can do me no hurt, for I am
an honest Christian maid, and the blessed St. Anna is my protectress.”
Was ever a good cavalier greeted thus before! I confess it was I who
was staggered a little, although I could scarcely keep from laughing.
“My worthy maiden,” said I, “I will not pretend to saintly virtues,
but I am not so often known as the Master Devil as the Graf von
Regenstein.”
I had expected a mortified smirk and simper at this, when the worthy
daughter of some forester or huntsman discovered her mistake.
Instead, I saw the golden head and blue frock bend in a graceful and
highly decorous courtesy.
“I beg my Lord of Regenstein’s pardon,” she said, with a grave
simplicity that disarmed any reply. “If he will persist in wandering
in our wood in a dark dress with a blue hat and an eagle’s feather,
he will remember that although such costume may be excellent for
Italy, it is in exactly such a garb as we are taught is worn by
the Master Devil, especially as your lordship has a little black
mustache and a smooth chin.”
By this time I had the offending hat off, and was sweeping the
feather against my knees, for I was not wholly lacking in wits. “And
who may be the gracious lady I have the honor to address?” I asked.
“Ilsa of the Harz; Ilsa von Blankenburg, who claims your Lordship’s
service.”
Another courtesy; out went a small white hand, and I bowed low whilst
I kissed it. Peasant maiden! All the noble pride and dignity of a
Cleopatra was in her bearing when I stood before her, and explained,
as I might, my unmannerly intrusion. And then as I strove to find
elegant words, suddenly I saw a marvellous change come over her
beauty. The dignity all vanished to the winds. Before me was standing
an arch, golden-haired, bright-cheeked girl who was laughing in pure
music at my confusion.
“Graf von Regenstein,--and I have called you the Master Devil,
and adjured you as the fiend! Oh, blessed Mother, was there ever
confusion like to that!” Her laughter went on and on, until I fell
to laughing too, and then we both laughed,--the best way to cement a
friendship.
And after a little, I hardly know how or why, I was walking along
that path through the forest, with Gräfin Ilsa chattering at my elbow
as freely as to her own brother. She seemed a mere child to me as
I looked and listened, yet I could not forget that long flash of
noble dignity at our first encounter. And how much she had to tell!
Yes, she was the only daughter of the Graf von Blankenburg. They
had returned only two days since from Halberstadt. At their schloss
they had been filled by the servants with stories of the new lord of
Regenstein, of his Italian clothes, Italian servants, and Italian
accent. It had rained since their coming, otherwise her father would
surely have sent over to offer hospitality. Her brother Moritz I
would rejoice to see. He had served in the southern wars and had been
clear to Rome, and once had actually seen the Holy Father. Had I also
seen the Holy Father? Yes? Several times? And actually conversed with
him? Oh! How sinful she had been; how could I, how could the saints,
forgive her? To have mistaken a pious Christian gentleman fresh from
the Apostolic benison for the author of lies? Of course I could not
fail to be an exceeding good man, having lived in the veritable
atmosphere of saintliness surrounding the Lord Pope.
If I turned my head at this last, remembering somewhat of my last
scenes and pleasures at the Vatican, I did not contradict her, and
she soon wandered on. Had I heard of her aunt, the great Abbess
Theckla of the nuns of Quedlinburg? No? Well, even a learned Italian
like myself could yet hear something to advantage. There was no
one in all the world--save the Lord Pope--so holy as Aunt Theckla.
Sometimes she prayed all night in winter in a thin shift in the cold
church, kneeling on sharp chains. To atone for her own sins? Not at
all. It was for the sins of her family,--her brother, his son, and
especially for her niece.
But here I had to cry out perforce. “Ah! gracious Gräfin,--you do not
mean she prays for sins of _yours_?”
“Why not?” The answer came with a matter-of-fact seriousness truly
startling. “Of course I am very sinful. If it were not for Aunt
Theckla’s prayers, I should surely go to hell. As it is, I hope the
good Lord God will some day let me out of purgatory. Do you think
He will?” This question straight in my face, and asked with all the
honesty in the world.
_O tempora! O mores!_ How was I, gayest of the gallants of Rome, with
my head filled with Plato and Porphyry and Avicenna, and every other
doubting misbeliever, to answer this question, levelled at me by a
young girl whom I had met not half an hour before? I confess I dared
not look her in the face.
“But, noble Lady, do you not by your own pious efforts try to appease
the saints?”
“Of course,” came the same calm answer. “I belong to ‘St. Ursula’s
Little Ship.’”
“I crave pardon, gracious Gräfin, but I do not understand.”
“I forget,” with a little sigh of impatience. “You are from Italy.
I mean the ‘Sodality of the Eleven Thousand Virgins.’ We are all
pledged to pray regularly, and say two Credos, five Paternosters,
and fifty Ave Marias every day. We fast all we can, and pray to
St. Ursula of Cologne. Besides that I wear haircloth all of Lent,
and pray still more to St. Anna. You see, she entreats her blessed
daughter Mary for us, and makes the Holy Virgin get the Lord Christ
to show us mercy. It is clearly explained in a little book I bought
at the last Halberstadt fair. But all this, they say, is not enough
to satisfy the Lord God. If it were not for Aunt Theckla, I could
never sleep, I would be so afraid of hell.”
I think by this time I would have welcomed a bear out of the forest,
just to change this flow of personal theology; but I was saved by
less drastic means.
“Did I know where she was going?” I had been following her blindly,
forgetful of forest or stream, but now I became interested in the
path. She would tell me. She was going to visit Dame Hedwig, “a very
wise woman.” Surely not a witch? Dame Hedwig had been confessed
only last month by Father Augustin. But she gathered all manner of
healing herbs in the forest, and Gräfin Ilsa must needs visit her
to renew the supply at Schloss Blankenburg. And why had the Graf’s
daughter gone this solitary road without escort? Another wonderful
laugh rewarded my question. Had she not wandered over the slopes
of the Harzland since she was at her nurse’s knee? Did she not know
every trout-pool, every pine crest from the Brocken to the wondrous
Bodethal? The red deer were her friends. All the peasant folk loved
her. What need of a pack of silly serving-men to scamper at her heels?
She led me onward till the leafy path came out upon a more traversed
way, which brought us soon into a still more open clearing. Here
before us to the westward spread a noble vista of the pine-crowned
hills, and in the purple distance, a monarch among the summits, which
Lady Ilsa was not slow to tell me, was the famous Brocken. A long
tale was soon being poured into my ears of the awful witches who
flew every evening on broomsticks from the Witches’ Dancing Ground
above the rushing Bode to this weird summit, there to consort the
night through with their lord, the Master Devil. “And I thought you
had come down by day from the Brocken to visit them,” she was saying
sweetly, when we halted before a little thatch-roofed hut, with a
great oak tree spreading its ample shade over the cavernous chimney.
Dame Hedwig was before the door, watering her bright array of
hollyhocks. Her bent old shape courtesied as she saw the Gräfin,
while she looked up at me from under her white cap with shrewd gray
eyes of questioning. My new friend made haste to explain who I might
be and what was her errand, and Hedwig courtesied again when Ilsa had
ceased, and I could feel her keen gaze going all over me.
“Ei: so you are the new ‘Countly Grace,’ the Lord of Regenstein? You
the heir of old Graf Sigismund who was lord when I was a girl? How
times have changed! And so you are just come from the Welschland?--”
I cannot say I felt complimented at her running commentary as she
bustled about her little kitchen, opening bags and boxes, and making
up sundry small packages for the lady.
“I am not unworthy of Graf Sigismund and the rest, I trust,” I said
a little stiffly, put on the defensive by her cold scrutiny, and
somewhat piqued as I saw that the Gräfin regarded her comments with
suppressed amusement.
“Unworthy? I said not that to your Lordship. Your Lordship is like
an unproved herb among my simples. How can I tell yet whether you
can kill or cure? Graf Sigismund had a two-handed sword as long
as a man. Your Lordship carries--that.” Her skinny finger pointed
contemptuously at my slight rapier.
“Nevertheless, honest Dame,” I said, “weak though my rapier seem,
I avow I can hold my own against any master of the greater weapon.
It is not a matter of strength, but of skill--thus--and thus--and
thus--” And carried away with pride in my martial art, I swept out
the glittering blade and flashed it about with rapid feints and
passes.
Dame Hedwig showed her sharp teeth testily.
“I don’t question your skill with that bodkin, young Lord. I only
know everything from your beardless chin to your flourishings now,
and the way you talk with your hands more than with your tongue,
prove that you are no German.”
“No German?” I was beginning to lose my temper. “This noble lady
here will pardon me if I tell you I demand a civil tongue from my
equals and my inferiors. I am hereditary lord of Regenstein, only son
of the last Graf. I have ever defended my father’s people and land
against the slanders of Italians, and I will not now, on my return to
my possessions, be told that I am a stranger and interloper amongst
them.”
Hedwig put down the bag of wormwood and walked straight up to me. Her
attitude was respectful, but firm. I could see that Ilsa was watching
all we did.
“No offence, noble Lord. When you spoke then, I saw your eye light up
in a manner worthy of the Grafs your fathers. Regenstein you may be,
and German you may become. But you are not yet. Will your Lordship
hold out your right hand?”
I complied, half misdoubting her intentions. She opened my fingers
and peered, with her sharp nose down into the palm, then dropped it
abruptly.
“What do you read, Hedwig?” asked Ilsa, with a very girlish giggle.
“Read? Oh! He has a life line and a wealth line both favorable. He
shall have two affairs of the heart, the first sorrowful and broken,
the second exceeding joyous.”
Ilsa clapped her own hands, ejaculating, “How excellent!” But Hedwig
went on. “Above all a great change shall come into his life. A change
altering the whole of his being,--his mode of thought, speech, hope,
life, soul--”
“Ah! tell!” commanded the young lady. Hedwig, however, shook her
head, and looked up craftily into my face.
“Noble Lord, I cannot tell the rest. But if you are wise, give ear.”
She half danced, half glided away from me, all the time keeping my
eye, and chanted shrilly:--
“Half of Northland,
Half of Southland,
Never gay
Till all of _one_ land!”
“Do you understand?” she concluded, with a meaning smile.
Before I could decide whether to be pleased or to be angry, a clatter
of hoofs sounded outside the cottage. I saw half a dozen mounted
serving-men with lances and cross-bows, and at their head a lady in
the sweeping white robes of a sovereign abbess, upon a stately black
palfrey. Ilsa had sprung to the door as the cortège drew up, making a
very wry face the while.
“Aunt Theckla,” she threw out. “I knew she would be vexed if I came
to Hedwig’s.”
A nimble young squire had dismounted and approached the door
abruptly, though he veiled his cap before the lady.
“Gracious Gräfin,” said he, “I am commanded to say that the reverend
abbess your aunt is not pleased at your custom of visiting this woman
of doubtful honesty. Having learned for what purpose you left the
castle, she has ridden hither to fetch you back to Blankenburg, and
your prompt obedience will spare me further mixing in an unpleasant
duty.”
Ilsa looked back with another wry face. I stood by the chimney,
disliking an introduction to the reverent abbess in such a dubious
spot.
“Fare you well,” spoke the Gräfin, as if to Hedwig, “just for a
little. I don’t mind the scolding, if my aunt _is_ a saint. I am so
glad you were not the Master Devil! We’ll go hunting together after
the red deer by the Brocken. _Auf wiedersehen!_”
And with that she was gone. I heard the murmur of a brief, sharp
colloquy with the abbess, doubtless accented by the fact that Lady
Ilsa had carried forth a neat little packet of Hedwig’s simples under
her elbow. I saw the Gräfin clamber upon a pillion behind the squire.
A clatter of hoofs--the troop was gone, and the young mistress with
it. It was as if a sunbeam had vanished from the cottage. The sun
still shone unclouded, but darkened. Inscrutable as she had been in
her mode of greeting, her mingling of the serious and the gay, her
girlishness, yet her occasional bursts of high womanhood, I felt
myself wholly baffled at the impression she had made upon me. I stood
in silence while Hedwig glanced cautiously out of the door to be sure
her unwelcome guests were gone.
“The abbess is like flint,” she spoke at length; “all white, and
pure, and hard--”
I took out a gulden and laid it significantly on the table.
“Hark you, wise dame,” I said civilly; “while I deny I am a foreigner
here, I confess I lack your local gossip. Who is this Gräfin von
Blankenburg I met by chance in the forest?”
“A moonbeam, a spring rose, a wood dove with an eagle’s heart and
will.”
“You have known her, then?”
“Ei! Didn’t I help her into the world the day her mother--God rest
her soul--passed from it?”
“Good woman,” I continued, “my folk at the castle do not like to give
me an evil opinion of my noble neighbors. Whenever I ask of the Graf
of Blankenburg they praise his hunting and let it go at that.”
“Holy St. Elizabeth--well they may!”
“What is he, then?”
She looked slyly at the coin.
“Your Lordship will not reveal _I_ told you tales. The Graf of
Blankenburg had his coat of arms burned on the cheek of a castle
varlet last year just for telling a few stories about his betters.”
“You are safe, continue.”
“Well, in a word, he is the most drunken, roaring, cruel lord in all
Saxony and Brunswick. Two months since he had a peasant’s guts torn
out and wound around a tree--and just for barking the trunk thereof.
‘To cover the peeled part,’ said his Lordship, merrily. He forces the
peasants to beat the bushes by night to quiet the frogs. He leads
his whole trampling hunt across their cornfields. He forces their
children to serve in the castle without pay--and woe then to the
honest, modest wenches among his foul varlets.”
“Verily,” said I, with a dry shrug, “I have a right courtly neighbor!”
“Pray God, he will not last very long. Graf Moritz, his son, is a
very prudent, honorable young lord. But his father will have drunk
and gambled away nigh everything. Moritz will get nothing but the
stripped acres and the bare castle. Poor young ritter--we all pity
him.”
“You seem to have no pity for Lady Ilsa, however?”
“Pity? My heart has broken long since for her. I’ll lament no more.
How she has lived through these years and not become even as her
sire, the Holy Mother knows! But she will become a saint, and need
none of our pity.”
“Become a saint? I really saw no signs of that.”
“Then she did not tell your Lordship? Her aunt is resolved she should
join her in the convent. She works upon the Graf’s fears, saying
‘Give your daughter to God, and He will spare your soul.’ As yet he
has not consented, but he will give way at last. He fears hell, and
well he may.”
“And Lady Ilsa?”
“Will of course yield. She is betwixt the abbess all ice, and her
father all vice.”
“Ah!” I let the conversation drop. Hedwig pointed out my way to
Regenstein, and I walked back, under the long northern twilight,
filled with thought. This then was the destined fate of the baffling
creature who had crossed my path this day. The veiling in the church;
the shorn hair; the severance from the world; the perpetual fast,
vigil, and service; the hardening monotony of years of routine
performance; the shadows of old age. Once I tried to contrast
Ilsa and my glorious Marianna; the thing was impossible: who can
contrast the noontide sun with starlight? Yet the starlight had its
beauty. I confess I was not sorry, in my isolation at Regenstein, to
think there was a young woman within reach to whom I could pay my
addresses. Just how far my addresses should go, whether even they
should be entirely honorable, I admit I did not let come into my
consideration. But I was determined not to let any ill-repute of the
father prevent me from company with the daughter.
The next morning, when Andrea came to shave me, I ordered him to take
his razor away.
“I will not be stared at by all the country. I will grow a beard.”
“But Eccellenza?” he began in dismay.
“And furthermore, I will order over a tailor from Halberstadt to have
my clothes made in the German fashion.”
He was too agonized now even to protest. As for myself, I leaned
upon the casement and gazed forth upon the neighborly battlements of
Schloss Blankenburg. Old Hedwig’s words were running in my head:--
“Half of Northland,
Half of Southland,
Never gay
Till all of _one_ land.”
“Perhaps,” I said very carelessly to myself, “Lady Ilsa will never
enter the convent.”
CHAPTER VII
WHAT BEFELL AT SCHLOSS BLANKENBURG
Two days later young Lord Moritz rode over from Blankenburg, and
with blunt civility invited me to join in the hunt; and I ran down
a red deer that afternoon in his company, enjoying a notable chase.
His sister rode with us. She mounted a tall Pomeranian bay, taking
the hedges and ravines like a Turkish trooper. She wore a bewitching
green habit, with a green silk cap set with a long red feather; and
was in at the death, aiding us in flogging off the dogs. “A proper
novitiate for a destined nun,” I meditated, as I watched her spring
unaided from the saddle, her golden hair flying, her eyes dancing,
her cheeks all red and bloom with fair excitement.
Artlessly as the brook she chattered, and I found the same delight
in her company one would take with a merry child. Our chase led us
far over the Harz, beside the rocky windings of the stream by the
Ilsenburg, and while we halted to watch the slim trout shooting in
the pools, my companion told me the story of the Princess Ilsa--her
namesake of legend--the king’s daughter who dwelt on the crags
above the stream, and all that befell her. As for Ritter Moritz, I
found him a sober young cavalier, courteous after a blunt way, and
very anxious to show civility. I could guess that his position at
Blankenburg was a hard one, and resolved to return his friendship.
The next day my precious books arrived at the Regenstein and I was
happy for the next two weeks. Then came an invitation to spend the
evening with the Graf von Blankenburg, and since I was beginning to
grow tired even of Homer, Sophocles, and Politiano, I was not sorry
to signify my acceptance.
* * * * *
I rode over to Schloss Blankenburg in what state I could affect. My
neighbor’s castle was much like my own, only in general more dingy,
though not without some display of tawdry magnificence. There was a
swarm of lousy grooms and hangers-on in the dirty court. My troop
was saluted with much blowing of horns and burning of powder. In the
entrance to the great hall Graf Eckbert came to meet me, and his
person did not belie the character Dame Hedwig gave him. He had a
girth nigh equal his moderate stature; sandy, frowsy hair and beard,
with small bluish eyes peering out of as seared and sensual face as
ever there was betwixt Kiel and Basel. Two missing teeth gave his jaw
a most uncanny grin. A great staff of a sabre clattered at his thigh.
His green velvet jacket boasted much gold lace, but was slovenly
with wine stains. In short, his person was such that it took all my
self-control to greet this noble lord courteously, as my equal and my
neighbor.
But Moritz was there, gravely and properly arrayed; and leaning on
his shoulder was Gräfin Ilsa, bedecked even as St. Dorothea, a rose
branch in her hand, a rose wreath on her hair, and a great bunch
of roses and cherries tied to her silver girdle. She wore a blue
sweeping gown of Antwerp taffeta, and some very good pearls at her
throat. I wondered a little at this display of taste and wealth,
knowing the condition of the Blankenburg estate, but it later
appeared that the jewels and dress were the gifts of her uncle, the
Castellan of Wittenberg.
Graf Eckbert, whatever his sins, was not taciturn. My flesh crept
as he kissed me on both cheeks. He poured a volley of maudlin
compliments in my ear, asked fifty questions without awaiting
an answer, introduced me to half a dozen oafish creatures, whom
I discovered were local petty nobles, or discharged lanz-knecht
subalterns,--for which “full-brothers” he evidently kept continually
a roaring open house,--and so led me into the great hall to the seat
at his right on the upper dais. The rest of the company scrambled for
places near by. One petty officer thrust himself into a seat more
exalted than his deserts, and was pushed out with tumult. Soon the
feast was in full progress. The hall shone all black and red under
the smoking pine torches. The greasy old server brought us vast lumps
of boars’ meat on dingy pewter platters. In the long hall under the
dais, a score of dirty retainers chattered, gorged, and quarrelled
over the brawn and beer at the table below. All of which time I,
the honored guest, thought gloomily on how in that whole castle
there was not one soul save myself who so much as knew the names of
Homer and Dante, and I tried to picture the delightful little supper
the Cardinale di Palaestrina was surely serving that night on the
Aventine,--and the wit, the learning and the elegance of the ladies.
But just as the feast started there was a trifling hush, while with
a great rustle into the hall swept my lady abbess of Quedlinburg
and took her seat at my other hand. She might well have become
a sculptured saint. It needed only to turn her black robes, the
white frill of her cap, the pale pink of her face, into hard
porphyry,--then the image would have been complete. In her youth Lady
Theckla could not have been uncomely. The lines of her mouth were
refined, but ungentle. She spoke to me in a clear monotone, opening
her lips very little. The only lively thing about her seemed her
steel-blue eyes. I did not love this close sight of the abbess. I
told myself one might argue half eternity with that fine strong face,
and win only denial; and as for pity or charity, you could more
wisely beseech the stone saint, for then your prayers were at least
heard up in heaven.
Grievous to tell, her coming did not impose the least check upon the
conversation of her brother and his boon companions, which was at all
times unspeakably foul,--so foul that I winced as I looked across the
table at Gräfin Ilsa, who sat silent and a little pale, while the
great hall buzzed around her,--a very different person from the merry
creature in the woodland and at the hunt.
Graf Eckbert was so anxious to air his views that he graciously
spared me the trouble of much speaking. He dominated the entire
discussion, his other guests and his children giving respectful
attention to his loudly delivered wisdom. That the world was awry,
and Germany in particular, he informed me long before the platters
of boars’ flesh had been replaced by those of venison. He cursed
the Emperor Maximilian, whom he described as a shuffling dotard
who starved Germany to feed his Austrian lands; he damned the last
Imperial Diet as a gathering of fools; particularly he devoted to the
pit the authors of the recent decree forbidding private warfare to
the nobility.
“As if we, Walter” (he appropriated my first name at the outset), “if
_we_ fell into any merry little debate, could not settle it with our
own good pikes and cross-bows, and not have to call in a snivelling,
black-gowned clerk with a pen behind his ear, to draw up parchments,
patter in Latin to a court, and then cheat us out of fair justice for
a beggaring fee.”
“Your Lordship does not believe in courts, then?” I ventured to ask.
“Ay, by St. Laurenz, but not of that kind. Courts are for peasants.
I hold court myself every Monday. Two fellows were triced up on the
gallows the other day for cutting firewood in my forest! Zounds--they
ought to have been drawn and quartered, but I am too tenderhearted!”
A tear trickled down his nose at recollection of his signal mercy.
“Your Lordship,” I said, “does exceeding well to avoid lawyers. There
is an old Florentine proverb ‘may sorrow, evil, and lawyers be far
from thee.’”
“Well said, Walter,--well said.” His vast hand clapped me on the back
outrageously. “Here, rascal. Bring the noble Graf a deeper flagon.
Put good warm Rhenish in it. We will teach him how deep a true
Harzlander can go. ’Tis under the table for all of us before morning.
Ten gulden, Walter, that you go there before me!”
I could see the face of Lady Ilsa growing whiter than ever. Her
father had evidently begun his challenges to deep potations very
early. I saw her sign to her aunt, and the abbess leaning towards us
tried to turn her brother’s conversation.
“It is not time for the wine yet, Eckbert. Our guest is not yet
thirsty. Do I understand that your Lordship has spent several years
in Rome?”
“I have had the honor, Reverend Abbess,” I replied.
“I am glad, for now you can contradict my impious nephew here.
Moritz was as quiet and God-fearing a lad as ever said his prayers
until he went to Italy; on his return he vows he is almost a Turkish
unbeliever, so great was the luxury and frivolity which he dares to
assert were displayed by many churchmen, dwellers at His Holiness’s
actual court, and even by certain most sacred cardinals.”
Moritz looked up from his trencher at me, and his sober eyes winked
slyly.
“Surely,” spoke Ilsa, hanging on my answer, “Moritz is a wicked boy.
He repeats these dreadful lies just to dismay us all, because we,
forsooth, have never been to Italy and Rome.”
“Lies! Lies!” vociferated her father, not waiting for me. “I vow
they are. Almost heresy--and never shall heretic dwell in Schloss
Blankenburg, not even my own child.”
“Your Lordship will soon learn,” observed Moritz quietly, with a
sidling glance at his aunt, “that my father, though liberal in other
matters, is a valiant defender of Holy Church and all things touching
her.”
“Well, then,” roared the Graf, “speak it out, Walter. Has not Moritz
lied outrageously concerning Rome and the Holy Pope’s court? Don’t
spare him if he _is_ my son.”
Alas for my courtesy! A man cannot sit through a feast like that and
not give place to the devil. I had one eye in my head when I answered,
“No foreigner can visit Rome and the Holy Father’s court and not
see many things he is liable to misunderstand. I do not doubt that
my noble friend Moritz _did_ hear of one or two cardinals whose
lives were a bit worldly. You see the Lord Pope, with the best of
intentions, is sometimes surrounded by a few self-seeking men.”
“Only a ‘few’--do you hear, Moritz?” cried his father, putting down a
prodigious goblet, which he had drained at a draught. “And the rest,
of course--” a long hiccough finished the remark.
“No doubt His Holiness,” interposed the abbess, “will soon reduce
these unworthy cardinals to pious regularity. I am told the Pope
delivers daily most eloquent and edifying sermons in the new church
of St. Peter.”
Moritz’s lip curled.
“I never heard of the Pope’s preaching any sermons,” he sneered.
“There is only one preacher in all Christendom _I_ ever cared for.”
“And who is he, graceless boy?” asked his aunt.
“Dr. Martin Luther, the Augustinian friar of Wittenberg. If all
parsons were like him, I’d be a holier man and a better listener at
church.”
“He is a pious young monk, I’ve heard,” said his aunt coldly, “but
naturally not comparable to His Holiness. Of course you, my Lord
Graf, have often heard the present Pope turn multitudes from their
sins by his burning eloquence.”
“I have certainly seen him appear in great state at St. John
Lateran,” I replied, with twitching lips, “on Corpus Christi day,
when thousands of people knelt to adore him in a place so holy that
the former Pope Benedict VIII--of blessed memory--said that if the
folk only knew how great indulgence was afforded by a mere visit to
that church they would sin yet more.”
“And his sermon?”
“I regret, my Lady Abbess, on that day His Holiness was suffering
from a cold. He could only hold up his fingers to bestow the
benediction. I merely mention the occasion as witness to the
veneration in which the Romans hold the most sacred Pontiff.”
Moritz looked at me reproachfully. He had evidently expected a more
active defence of his heterodoxy. Perhaps the heady wine--which I was
being forced very reluctantly to imbibe by my importunate host--was
making me reckless; I resolved not to disappoint Moritz.
“But on thousands of other occasions,” spoke Ilsa, evidently deeply
interested, “the Lord Pope has preached to the multitude, to the vast
saving of their souls. A wandering Dominican, very dirty and very
holy, told me as much yesterday.”
“Then,” I replied dryly and rashly, “your gracious Ladyship was very
ill-informed, for I grieve to tell you his present Holiness, though
a very learned and urbane prince, is better at playing cards than
saying masses, and a better huntsman than preacher.”
It must have been the wine that made me throw this out bluntly. I saw
the abbess nigh swooning back in her chair, muttering “blasphemy!”
Poor Ilsa turned deathly pale, Moritz grinned in manifest glee, but
his father almost jumped from his seat, his face growing livid.
“God’s death! Take back your words--”
“Father! Father! Our guest,” cried Ilsa in dismay, while Moritz
caught his sleeve, at the same time asserting that “He has only said
what I have always said.”
Unwilling to brawl then and there, I turned on my angry host very
coolly.
“My gracious Lord,” I said, “I do not mean to slander the Sacred
Pontiff. I was about to add that the Pope suffers from an ulcer which
prevents him from executing the various sacred offices, and that his
physicians recommend to him divers innocent diversions.”
“Ah! Very well,” quoth the Graf, mollified for the moment, and
settling back in his great chair. But the abbess and Ilsa still
stared at me ominously, accepting my last words at true value.
The feast proceeded. It was impossible for me, without giving dire
offence, to avoid drinking large quantities of the fiery Rudesheimer.
I boasted a strong head, but I felt I was gradually losing complete
self-mastery. With a kind of dread I found the conversation drifting
again toward religious topics. Graf Eckbert had been airing more of
his grievances.
“The times are evil. Wholly out of joint! The peasants, insolent
hounds, think themselves as good as their masters. They drink wine in
place of beer, and are actually enraged if you flog them. All from
lack of piety! True religion is dying out. How can the clod-hoppers
hope to obey God if they do not first obey their masters? To hell
they’ll go, all of them.”
“Their masters, of course,” I added viciously, “setting an example of
all Christian graces.”
“Graces? What d’ye say?” the Graf’s mind leaped from one thing to
another. “What need have _we_, the ritters, of graces? Can’t we
drink, swear, indulge, carouse, kill as we like, and square with the
saints at the end? The saints are very good-natured, I tell you. We
do as we please, and at the end, a good indulgence from some vendor,
a few acres given the abbey, the merits that come of owning some
saints’ relics--ei!--we slip through Master Satan’s fingers like a
greased pig, and up we go to heaven!”
“So your pious Lordship owns some saints’ relics?” I asked, fingering
my goblet.
“Relics! By my father’s soul; haven’t I squandered half my fortune on
them! Suffering in this world to lay up treasure in heaven, as says
Father Augustin.” Tear-drops were again on his nose at thought of his
piety. “Three hairs of St. Laurenz, plucked by a soldier just ere
he was toasted on the gridiron; a finger nail of St. John the Less;
a toe of St. Agatha, and the whole right thigh bone of St. Anthony.
Here, Dietrich--bring me the reliquary.”
“You need not hasten,” spoke up Moritz, whom the wine had rendered
wholly irresponsible; “that thigh bone is from a pig, as any but
a fool can recognize. At Pisa there are _both_ thigh bones of the
selfsame saint. My father was easily hoodwinked by the glozing friar
who sold it him.” He glanced at me for confirmation.
“Certainly,” I nodded recklessly, though imagining a storm. “I have
seen them there myself; only, there is still another pair at Mantua.
I fear the worthy saint--”
But this time I had roused the demon. Mine host bounded out of his
chair, and seized me furiously by the shoulder.
“Holy Wounds! Will you say I was cheated, and that to my very face?
Men have died for less than that!”
“Very possibly,” I replied, with drunken abandon, loosening his
clutch. “But I shall not. And now, Graf von Blankenburg, since you
would lay hands on a guest, and insult me before your family and
servants, hear at length the truth. All the country-side proclaims
you the most profligate, cruel, dastardly lord in the Harzland. You
prate of the saints, when you care as little for saintliness as a dog
for Lent.”
He brandished his fists in my face, but for the instant I held him
back by the lightnings in my eyes.
“You make your daughter to be pitied by every old woman and every
clown. You think to smuggle yourself into heaven, when hell--if hell
there be--yawns to receive you. You are one of those Germans who
make the German name hateful in Italy, as the name for false piety,
oafishness, swinishness, and pure devilishness.”
But here, with a great beast-like roar, he had broken away from
Moritz, trying to hold him, and clutched a heavy boar’s spear from
the rack behind the table. I paused in my torrent of words just
enough to see the weapon glittering over his head, and whing!--it
had shot across my shoulder, just grazing the skin, and dug into
the table below the dais. A scream from Ilsa, the abbess rising
with every sign of horror, shouts, runnings to and fro, some of my
own Regensteiners hurrying me from the hall, a rending volley of
curses from the Graf, who was struggling with his son and trusted
retainers,--it all passed like a hideous dream.
I was outside the castle and standing under the black night while
they brought up the horses. The cool wind was lessening the effects
of the wine. I looked upward. Above me was the selfsame canopy of
stars that had been when Marianna and I had gazed upon them together,
sitting still and close in the Vatican gardens. Marianna! At the
moment I was ready to retract every word spoken publicly or privately
in praise of Germany; to denounce it as the most man-accursed and
God-forsaken land on the wide earth, from the savage Indes to roaring
Muscovy.
“By Zeus and the Styx,” I swore in true classic style, “let me but
live out one year in this crow’s nest of mine, and then back to
Italy--and to _her_!”
In this mood I fared home to Regenstein. The next morning, sober, and
with a headache, I sent Adolf with my cartel, telling the Graf von
Blankenburg I must needs desire to meet him on the field of honor,
the insult which he proffered me affording but one atonement.
* * * * *
However, in the cool of the day, as I walked moody and alone in the
little pine grove at the foot of the Regenstein, lo! out of the
trees, as in the manner of an apparition, glided Gräfin Ilsa. She was
white as new paper; her eyes were red: her hair flew uncombed over
her shoulders; her dress was sombre and mean. Much embarrassed at her
coming, I stood stock still, while she, moving up to me, paused as if
to take courage, then without more ado knelt at my very feet. Next
her words came, mingled in a torrent of sobbing.
“Oh, you are generous! You are noble and forgiving. _Liebe Gott_, do
not, do not--”
“Do not what, gracious Lady?” I asked, still sorely confused myself.
“Do not press this duel on my father. You know he was in his cups. He
has treated you--his own guest--most foully. He sought your life. But
Moritz egged you both on. Be merciful, be generous--spare him, spare!”
All her womanly dignity was gone. I seemed dealing with a very young
girl.
“Noble Gräfin,” I said, drawing myself up, “arise. Let us talk
calmly. You know what men of my rank mean by ‘honor.’ And has not
mine been basely stained? How can I suffer this insult to pass?”
“Yes, yes,” she moaned, still at my knees. “I understand. It is
‘honor’ when you, a master swordsman, meet my father. He is old; his
hand unsteady. Ten passes and he is dead. And then”--She pressed her
hands to her face.
“Dear Lady,” I replied, I thought not unkindly, striving to raise
her; “then you and yours will be rid of one who has made your life
wretched; who has wearied heaven with his deeds.”
But now she caught my girdle, and seemed like some wild bird
struggling in defence of its young and nest.
“Ah! you have said it. Sinful he is, vile, godless. I begged of
Aunt Theckla, ‘will his saints’ relics save him? Will he ever join
my blessed mother up in heaven?’ And she only looked at me in her
unmoved way, and said, ‘It will take vast indulgence and good
works, and then I cannot tell.’ She dared not say the devils were
waiting for his soul, but I know it. Oh, blessed Christ, but I am so
miserable! Hear now, Lord Graf; if kill you must, kill me! I can bear
it. I can die, wicked as I am. Even the dreadful quenchless fire will
not feel so terrible, when I think ‘I endure this to ransom the soul
of my father.’”
She had seized the skirt of my cloak, and clung piteously. And I,
being neither iron nor adamant, could not hear unmoved.
“Dear Lady,” I said very gently now, “if any man in Rome had ever
told me I would overlook an insult like that of last night, and
not make the doer walk up my rapier, the sayer himself would have
eaten his words or died for it; but you fight me with weapons I
cannot parry. If any saint can open the gate of heaven for the Graf
von Blankenburg, I swear it will be his noble daughter. Go to your
brother. He is a man of honor and sense. Tell him I withdraw the
challenge; only he must send me some kind of an apology in behalf of
his father which I can show to my Regensteiners. And now, gracious
Gräfin, this dialogue has been overlong; you would do well to be
setting homeward, the more as I cannot wisely escort you far.”
She would have kissed my feet had I only suffered it.
“I will pray St. Anna, St. Elizabeth, and all the rest to bless you
to-night. You are the noblest, most chivalrous ritter in the world. I
knew you would be merciful. But this is a dreadful earth we dwell in;
Aunt Theckla is right--there is no peace save in the convent, where
one can try to please God all day long.”
And with these very ill-connected sentences she was gone down into
the trees, almost as suddenly as she had come. I stood shrugging my
shoulders. I had been mortally insulted, and had suddenly forgiven
the insult as meekly as a St. Francis,--and all for the tears of
a superstitious, crying, pleading girl, as bereft of true wit and
elegance as the pine stumps.
“Bah!” I cried, and spat vehemently. “A few more months in this place
and I shall be bewitched and befooled every hour. Well--at Rome they
are wise to depend on ‘The Sins of the Germans’ to fill the Pope’s
coffers. What a fearful and wonderful thing is this fear of hell
fire!”
CHAPTER VIII
I HEAR JOHN TETZEL
Moritz sent all possible apologies in behalf of his father. “An
affair of the cups” explained everything to my castle-folk. The
clouds so suddenly gathered as suddenly blew over. I visited no more
at Schloss Blankenburg, but almost daily Moritz met me at a great oak
betwixt our respective fortress mansions, and forth we rode on the
hunt. The Graf wisely kept to himself. The abbess had returned to
Quedlinburg. Lady Ilsa was with us often. A chameleon was she,--now
the dignified, courtly dame who honored me merely by suffering me to
ride decorously at her saddle-bow, now the merry-eyed girl who gave
me the same familiar chatter she granted her brother, now the sedate
and pious woman who told long stories of the blessed saints and the
evil witches, pressed me as to the nature of “succubi and incubi,”
and asked with perfect seriousness “whether she did not have an
entire vocation for the convent?” At Rome I had conceitedly thought
that I comprehended womankind; but I did not then know Ilsa.
Life at the Regenstein was become, by this time, tolerable. Ever
the northern beauty of the Harzland grew on me; the sniff of the
pines, the long silences of the hills. I began to find the honest
friendliness of my uncouth retainers more agreeable than the
elaborate service of lips and gesture which Andrea bestowed. I even
began to find a music in the German speech. The stubble on my chin
was grown to a decent length. I wore clothes after the somewhat loud
and full-cut fashion of the country.
“Your noble Grace is become a right Harzlander like his sires,” said
Adolf, one day, approvingly.
Nevertheless, when summer passed into autumn, and I saw the rains
destroying the glory of the greenwood, I concurred with Moritz when
he suggested that I ride with him to Wittenberg. Ilsa had been asked
thither for the winter to the home of her maternal aunt, the Freifau
von Steinitz; and as for me, I would find congenial and advantageous
company at the local court of the Elector of Saxony, the far renowned
Frederick the Wise.
How we fared down from the Harzland into the rich valley of the Elbe,
how by a detour we visited the free and wealthy city of Magdeburg,
and were astonished at the elegance of its princely burghers, and how
finally we must needs make another detour towards Berlin to visit
an old military friend of my father’s, I leave out as immaterial.
After quitting our host’s castle we found ourselves, late in
October, traversing the sandy plain that forms the southern part of
the Markgravate of Brandenburg. The country was poor, the peasants
dwelling in wretched little mud villages, the castles to offer us
hospitality few, and the inns intolerable. We therefore hastened over
the last stages of the way to Jüterbog with all possible speed, being
told that a cleanly inn and decent fare at last awaited us, and need
we had of both.
While yet we were about two German miles[2] from the town, and upon
a most solitary road, we were amazed at the number of wayfarers our
cavalcade overtook--old men on their canes, round peasant women
with children hanging at their skirts, and whole bands of sturdy
wayfarers, usually carrying goodly bundles of provisions as if for
a long journey. Occasionally we passed creaking ox-carts whereon a
whole family were sitting in the straw. Once a company of wandering
scholars ran up to us to beg “Charity for God’s sake!” in very bad
Latin. We were all mystified, until at a watering trough a trudging
rascal, who called himself a mendicant friar on pilgrimage to the
Swiss shrine of Eisiedeln, gave the key.
“Whither go all these folk?” asked Moritz from his saddle; “to a
shooting tournament?”
“To a holier sport than that, please your Lordship,” spoke the
fellow, holding out his hand for a groschen.
“Well, tell us, then.”
“Why, the reverend Master Tetzel, His Holiness’s own special
Commissioner, will preach and sell the new plenary indulgences this
afternoon before the church at Jüterbog.”
“Indulgences?” I saw Gräfin Ilsa’s pretty ears prick up like a
rabbit’s. “What do you mean?”
“Why, your Ladyship can learn for herself when she gets to Jüterbog.
Not that noble folk like you have great sins upon your conscience,
but still these are the most potent indulgences ever hawked. The Lord
Pope’s special granting, you know.”
“What we heard of at Magdeburg,” frowned Moritz to me, but Ilsa was
all attention.
“Your Lordships would do well to hear Master Tetzel,” ran on the glib
rogue. “You see, he goes to Jüterbog because it is the nearest town
to Saxony, the Elector having forbidden him to enter his dominions.”
“Another proof the Elector is justly called ‘the Wise,’” I remarked,
signing to ride on. But from that moment Ilsa had lost interest in
everything else, and questions from other wayfarers brought out
abundance of information.
“Oh, yes, your Ladyship,” said an old peasant, “we have travelled
clear from Bitterfeld, my wife and I, to hear Master Tetzel. They say
he sells a wondrous indulgence--if you have one, your sins are washed
clean white; and they avail equally well to get your friends out of
purgatory if they have gone before you.”
“Crafty rascal,” I was muttering to Moritz. “I heard of this
indulgence even in Rome. Half of the money _may_ go to build St.
Peter’s church, but the other half, I take my oath, goes to the
Fuggers, those Augsburg bankers who advanced the Archbishop of Mainz
his 30,000 gulden to pay the Pope’s fees for his confirmation: and
now the Archbishop is recouping himself.”
“And as for Tetzel,” quoth Moritz, with an equal shrug, “he is a
hang-dog Dominican of vile fame in these parts. Rumor makes him out
as condemned for adultery at Innsbruck five years ago, and barely
saved by the Elector of Saxony’s pleading; possibly the story’s
unjust, but you can judge the man after you see him. At least, he has
a front and a voice of brass--the noisy villain.”
But my Lady Ilsa heard, or would hear, nothing of such innuendoes.
After another pious wayfarer had suggested that one could probably
buy an indulgence for some absent friend, I could ever see her giving
the whip to her palfrey and leading us all.
“It’s her father that’s on her mind, poor lass!” spoke Moritz to me
under his breath. “I know what you are thinking, and I think the
same; but if for a few gulden we can get a scrap of paper that will
make _her_ a bit happier--who in the devil’s name should make a face?”
And so we pressed onward. We saw the towers of Jüterbog, a little
before noon, across the brown, sear grain fields of the advancing
autumn. Solemn dark windmills were waving their long arms above the
farmsteads. The squalid little thatched villages were pouring out
their tow-headed northern peasantry, all headed for Jüterbog. At
the gate of the small city and in the main street we could hardly
win a way to the principal inn--despite vigorous laying about with
our riding whips. We found the ‘Reichskanzler’ a very endurable
hostelry, and luckily the best rooms were not taken, but mine host
bustled up to us while at dinner to inform “their Lordships that
they had best hasten their repast if they wished to see the reverend
Commissioner of Indulgences enter the city.”
The inn naturally faced upon the chief square opposite the church.
A convenient window was reserved for us, and quite at our ease we
witnessed a sight which we were not to forget for many a long day.
Only, through it all, I had one eye on the swarming street below,
and one on Gräfin Ilsa, who sat flushed, eager, beautiful, as if
expecting some kind angel to come down and bring a miraculous
deliverance. And repeatedly I marvelled to myself at the fate which
made the mad heretic and infidel of Messere Chigi’s feast the silent
witness of what now came to pass.
At first the market-place seemed a mere fair ground. Two husky
peasants were wrestling in a ring; a juggler was showing a few poor
tricks from the church steps; vendors of bright ribbons, little
knives, and red cloth caps cried their wares; a swarm of thirsty folk
were coming and going from the wine cellar under the Rathaus. Then
of a sudden the great bell on high began its booming. The folk came
thronging into the square from every alley, making the whole place
a sea of heads with a narrow avenue up to the church door. Next the
blowing of horns and the chanting of the _Te Deum_ by many voices;
and in streamed the procession. The local priests in their whitest
surplices led, next the dark-gowned monks of the local convent, while
altar boys ran at either side swinging the smoking censers; then the
gravely gowned magistrates of the town, after them a vast herd of
laymen, members of various religious brotherhoods, bearing many gay
banners. These were followed by a multitude of school children, rosy
and clean, and dressed in their best, all singing a hymn in praise
of the Blessed Virgin. Then a kind of trembling seized the crowd.
Necks craned, hats came off, a great many fell upon their knees on
the flagging.
“Give heed, Christians,” a crier’s voice proclaimed. “The Reverend
Master Tetzel and the warrant of His Holiness!”
A young monk bore a great parchment on a purple velvet cushion,--the
commission of the Pope to the indulgence vendor. A second monk
bore a tall red cross whereon the papal arms were emblazoned; and
then, walking alone, and turning from time to time to lift his hand
unctuously to bestow benediction upon the awestruck multitude, came
the Reverend Master Tetzel.
The organ rumbled from the church, the procession streamed into it,
and as many of the less orderly multitude followed as could find
room. They were gone long enough to say a brief mass, and then,
just as Ilsa was showing every sign of impatience, the Commissioner
emerged again, and with similar pomp took his stand upon a small
pulpit erected near the portal, with the red papal cross above him,
and at his right,--significantly enough--a stout, iron-bound chest,
secured by several padlocks. Beside the chest I saw a well-groomed
merchant’s clerk whom I rightly suspected was the agent of the
Fuggers, to make sure those worthy bankers received their share of
the pious offerings.
Master Tetzel was a tall, full-necked Dominican who knew how to make
his black robe fall in impressive folds. Later I discovered that his
face was hard, cynical, and none too honest; but we saw him then only
from across the market-place, whence his bull’s voice easily carried.
The harangue he uttered was evidently a well-tested article, approved
by its effect on many similar audiences. He began by extolling the
charity of the Pope, who deigned to bestow such peculiar graces
upon the German people, a folk he preferred above all the rest of
Christendom. As for the object for which they were summoned to
contribute their money, it was for the building of the Basilica of
St. Peter, the holiest sanctuary in the world. But what, in any case,
were a few miserable gulden beside the chance then and there for
every one present to win eternal life for himself and for all his
friends?
I cannot tell all his artful threatenings and persuadings, all his
utterances about the vast treasury of good deeds accumulated by
Christ, the Apostles, and manifold saints but now thrown freely at
the disposal of any purchaser of indulgence. I will not deny he
dropped words to the effect that a formal confession was necessary
before the “blessed medicine” began its perfect effect upon the
living, but it was very plain that he who paid the money would
not find many difficulties in the shriving. As for the dead--now
doubtless in purgatory--here was a marvellous chance to deliver them!
“I call on you all--great sinners, murderers, robbers, adulterers,
to turn to God and receive this miraculous medicine which He in his
mercy and wisdom has provided for your benefit. St. Stephen gave up
his body to be stoned--his virtue is yours. St. Laurenz his to be
burned, yours also. The martyrdom of St. Bartholomew is imputed to
you again. And yet you--amongst whom even the most righteous is a
miserable offender--will you not give one little gift of vile money
to purchase eternal life?”
And then while women wept, and stolid peasants shook, he thundered
the virtue of his indulgences touching the dead; and through it all I
could see Ilsa’s tense, white face leaning farther, farther from the
balcony.
“Your parents and relatives, sinners before God even if righteous
before men, are in the flames of purgatory. They are crying out to
you, ‘We are in bitterest torments; with a small alms you could save
us, but you will not. We gave you birth, nourished you, and left you
all our temporal goods; yet such is your cruelty towards us that
you, so able to make us free, suffer us to lie in the fire.’”
“Is the action of the indulgence swift and sure even in purgatory?”
cried some voice from the front of the gaping multitude.
Tetzel clapped his powerful hands together. “Yea verily! By God and
all his angels!
‘The money in the strong box rings--
The ransomed soul to heaven upsprings!’
“I say unto you no words can describe the power and merit of these
indulgences. Never before was such opportunity for sinful men. Yes!
He who had been marvellously suffered to do foulest insult to the
Holy Mother of God--pardon would be here for him!”
And then he threw his eyes upward and made the market-place shake
with his stentorian summons.
“Lo! Heaven is opened! When will you enter if not now? Oh, senseless
men, too hardened to appreciate such a bestowal of divine grace! How
hard-hearted! If you will not think of yourselves, think at least
of your parents, your father, your mother!” (Poor Ilsa’s head went
down upon her hands. Moritz put his manly arm about her, while I
discreetly looked upon Tetzel. The orator swept on to his turgid
climax.) “Thus I have spoken. The hour of mercy passes. The hour of
awful judgment will be at hand. At that last judgment I am free, you
responsible; for I tell you that if you have but one garment, sell
it; sell it--rather than fail to gain such a wondrous grace!”
By this time men and women were down on the stones, moaning, beating
their breasts, and crying out for all manner of mercy. Tetzel stepped
deliberately from the pulpit; and a lieutenant of milder voice
explained the practical details. There was a scale of prices for the
indulgence based upon the rank of the purchaser and the enormity of
his guilt. Wives were advised to get indulgences for their absent
husbands, who need know nothing about them in advance. There were
priests ready in the church to hear confessions, and as soon as these
had been gone through (and very perfunctorily, I may add) and the
money paid, the indulgence was granted; while of course for souls in
purgatory only the money would be required.
Soon a swarm as of bees was around the tables set now on the church
steps, where several of the Commissioner’s clerks busily filled in
the blank indulgence papers; and you could hear the steady chink,
chink of good coin into the chest. Master Tetzel had known his
audience. He was reaping an abundant harvest for his holy employers
and the Fuggers.
Half amused and half disgusted I turned away, when I saw Gräfin Ilsa
rising.
“My purse, brother,” she was saying; “I must go to the church.”
I let Moritz remonstrate with her, uttering, myself, not a word. He
availed nothing. Away she went to the church with her two maids,
both about as scared and fluttering as herself; and we sat gnawing
our lips and thinking hard thoughts till they came back again. As
imagined, the Gräfin had been as a lamb among wolves to the reverend
indulgence sellers. She had purchased “graces” for herself, for her
brother, for her departed mother, and above all for her father. The
crafty vendors, at once divining her gentle blood, had pried out her
true rank and taxed her ten good gulden per document, as the tariff
duly provided for “abbots, great prelates, counts, barons, and others
of the higher nobility,” for each of the precious letters. And there
these letters were, most handsomely engrossed and sealed; whilst over
her father’s the little lady poured especially, and read aloud to us
the solemn words.
“Our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on thee, Eckbert von
Blankenburg, and absolve thee by the merits of his most holy
sufferings. And I in virtue of the apostolic power granted unto
me, absolve thee from all ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and
penalties that thou mayest have incurred, however great. I efface
all the stains of weakness and traces of shame. I remit the pains
thou wouldest have had to endure in purgatory. I reincorporate
thee in the communion of the saints, so at the moment of death
the gate of paradise shall be opened to thee. And if thou
shouldest live long, this grace continueth unchangeable, until
the time of thy end.”
“But,” asked Moritz, none too enthusiastically, “must not our father
go to confession before this indulgence becomes potent for him?”
“There was, indeed,” admitted Ilsa, “a little said about a
confession, but the Commissioner’s clerk was very certain the main
thing was the ten gulden. In any case, I can get Father Augustin to
absolve my father, and all will be well.”
“So, dear Gräfin,” I said, I fear a little cynically, “you are quite
satisfied of the strength and validity of these holy indulgences?”
“You saw the Pope’s arms; you heard the preacher’s words. It _must_
be all true, else whom in God’s world are we poor maids to believe?”
“Don’t press her,” growled Moritz in my ear; “drowning men will
clutch at straws. For a little while she is being made very happy.”
But as for me, my blood had nigh boiled over. That night, after the
Gräfin and her brother had retired, I went down into the great common
room of the inn, and there in a roaring company, cans clinking and
foul jests going about full merrily, was his Reverence the Pope’s
Commissioner. I strode straight into the herd of wandering friars,
discharged lanz-knechts, guzzling burghers, and up to the armchair
where the Herr Preacher sat, with a fat, sly-eyed bar wench hanging
on his elbow. The sight of a man in the dress of a gentleman, and
with a silver scabbard, made everybody put down his mug, and look
sharply as I accosted the Commissioner.
“Magister Johannes Tetzel,” spoke I clearly in Latin, standing before
him, “I would speak with you.”
“Welcome, welcome to your Lordship,” the fellow slipped his flagon
back to the woman and turned on me an eye as worldly wise as a rat’s;
“your nobility would purchase one of my matchless and infallible soul
medicaments?”
“Not for all the world. Now hear me, Herr Papal Commissioner. I have
perforce to-day listened to your sermon, and very vile it was. I am a
layman, but I know as much theology as full many gorging clerks; and
I say to your face, you are befooling these honest folk out of their
poor money as foully as did ever a Jew with his usury.”
The reverend domine flashed out of his seat like a bursting petard.
His face was red as a beet.
“A million fiends! What have we here--a Turkish infidel? Am I not the
lawful Apostolic Commissioner and Inquisitor into Heretical Pravity?
Do you want utter anathema and the major excommunication?”
“Pish,” I responded, deliberately banging my hilt upon the table, “I
have lived in Rome. I’m not a silly girl to be scared by big words
and hell fire. I say to you, you have exceeded your commission.
Debatable as are all the Pope’s indulgences, you have preached them
in a manner your betters never authorized.”
“Now, by St. Dominic,” sneered the preacher, recovering a little of
his poise, “who are you, my brave ritter, to swagger in here, and
talk like a bishop? If you _have_ been in Rome, you will remember the
saying there current, ‘God desireth not the death of any sinner, but
that he should _pay_ and live’; and as for my instructions, I have
followed them so excellently well that my chest is exceeding heavy,
and that is all the Archbishop of Mainz or the Pope are likely to ask
about.”
“Or the banking house of the Fuggers,” I flung back, casting an eye
upon the spruce agent who sat by his wine in a corner. “Verily,
Magister Tetzel, I hear that at your north country festivals there is
a prize to the champion telling the greatest lie. By all the devils
in hell I swear you are full victor!”
All this cut and thrust brought nowhere, and I was a fool to have
believed that I could have accomplished anything. I was too furious
to argue calmly, and Tetzel was beyond all argument. At least the
reverend rascal heard his sins set before him in no mincing language.
At last realizing that our colloquy was passing into a mere badinage
of coarse epithets and empty threats, I had the wisdom to turn on my
heel.
“No doubt, my venerable scoundrel,” I cried, as a last volley, “you
have never heard of the learned Italian Masuccio. Grow wise, then,
hearing what he said of you friars. ‘The best punishment for you
would be for God to abolish purgatory and the fear thereof; then you
would get no more alms and must go back to your spades.’”
“Heresy! Blasphemy!” roared the Commissioner and a dozen satellites.
So I left them, calling for their “sleeping drinks” and making the
dice rattle.
I went to bed in the most impious mood imaginable. The affair had
confirmed me in my long standing suspicion that what most men called
religion was a noxious lie.
“Curses on the faith that makes a creature like Ilsa--born to dwell
in the sunlight--live out her days in terror and gnawing woe! If god
I must have, let him be the Zeus of Plato and Aristotle.” And with
such unholy thoughts, presently I went to sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] About nine English miles.
CHAPTER IX
I HEAR MARTIN LUTHER
The next day we journeyed on to Wittenberg, through the white birch
forests and seared autumn grain fields, the villages still keeping
their poverty-stricken character, and our company overtaking again
many plodding companies, this time all headed away from Jüterbog.
Hardly a person but bore his or her little scroll signed by Master
Tetzel. But although the Gräfin would hear never a word, Moritz
and I were pleased to catch not a little adverse comment upon the
proceedings of yesterday.
“Your Lordships doubtless understand, but I do not,” grumbled a gray
old farmer at a tavern where we stopped for beer. “I have bought my
paper, but I can never see why the dear God so loves money that for
lack of a few groschen He would leave a soul in everlasting torment.
Best no doubt to be on the safe side,--but I cannot make it out.”
“Nor I,” spoke a younger companion, “why the Lord Pope--who, they
say, is a most charitable man--does not out of pure love empty the
whole of purgatory, since he is willing to free so many souls just
for such a trifle as a gift for a church?”
“Hush, Grundold,” urged a third, cautiously; “don’t talk against the
reverend commissioner. Priests have ears everywhere.”
“We will never betray your gossip, good folk,” said I, quitting them:
“but we have no answer to your questions.”
Others however were more complacent, and I heard one rogue boasting
how he had committed a robbery four months since and his conscience
now felt “white as a new dropped lamb.” All of which made me think
more hard thoughts of Master Tetzel.
Shortly before noon we saw lifting above the plain to westward the
tall round tower of the “Castle Church” of Wittenberg, and beside
it the lower twin towers of the “Parish Church,” and presently
the capital town of Electoral Saxony spread out its walls and
houses before us. Often have I recalled that first sight of the
little city wherein my whole life, yes, and the whole life of half
of wide Christendom, was to be run as through a crucible, and
changed--changed so that only the shadow of our old uncouth selves
remained. I remember the feeling of disappointment when on passing
the gate I saw the muddy, ill-paved streets, where lean hens and
dirty geese were picking in the piles of offal. I saw too the long,
ill-built street of ugly wooden houses, the only thoroughfare of the
city. Even as we came under the gate we met two drunken students
belaboring one another with sturdy cudgels, while a ring of more
sober comrades stood by, urging them merrily to “lay on!”
“A scurvy hole,” I commented to Moritz, and he cheerfully replied
that Wittenberg was reputed “the most drunken town in Germany,”
adding, however, that since the establishment of the new University
things had been somewhat on the mend.
Luckily we found the town a little less obnoxious as we proceeded
west along the Collegien-strasse, and at last before the sombre,
unpretending Schloss we found the palatial home of the elector’s
castellan, the Freiherr von Steinitz, who with his noble lady granted
us worthy hospitality. It was my first sight of a German patrician’s
city house, and the display of gold and silver plate, the rare
Venetian glass, the costly tapestries, the paintings by Memling, the
engravings by Dürer, the rich massive furniture covered with delicate
carving,--all these told of a taste and elegance worthy of the best
palazzo in Rome.
The Prince Elector was absent from the city, but I was assured there
were gentlemen at the Schloss well worth my acquaintance and company.
As for Gräfin Ilsa she was happy as a bird in her aunt’s enlivening
society, and there were soon half a dozen young ritters pranked out
in their best, and hanging around the Freiherr’s great hall all day
for a chance to have a few words with her, and show her the sights of
Wittenberg. They were a little disgusted, perhaps, to learn that she
was most interested in the marvellous collection of saints’ relics
assembled by the pious elector at the Castle Church. She told us that
evening about all the wonders she had met,--five thousand infallible
and genuine relics of the holy ones, including some skin from the
face of St. Bartholomew, drops of the milk of Mary, a piece of the
rod of Aaron, and some straw whereon the Christchild lay.
“Five hundred thousand years indulgence just for visiting them,” she
concluded. “Oh! if I could only bring my father!”
The good-hearted Freifrau here tactfully changed the subject. Her
husband, however, and certain of the ‘Honorability’[3] who joined us
at the board, spoke with veiled bitterness of the recent mania for
indulgences.
“Tetzel is a greater knave than Judas,” concluded the testy Freiherr;
“all honest men are enraged at him--but who will bell the cat?”
Who indeed? For I considered his words as prophetic when, a little
later in the evening, as we sat listening to a recital of the recent
troubles betwixt Kaiser Maximilian and the princes, a visitor was
introduced, requesting to see none other than myself.
“Dr. Andreas Carlstadt,” said the Freiherr as intermediary; “one of
the most learned and honored of our University professors.”
The newcomer was a man of smallish stature, dark and sunburned,
with over-sharp features; he had a harsh voice, and I judged a warm
temper, though not lacking in learning and intellectual ability.
Having ascertained my identity he drew his fur-lined doctor’s gown
about him and gave me a profound reverence; then proceeded to ask
questions. I was familiar with Rome? Yes. Recently come thence? Yes.
I had seen Tetzel at Jüterbog? Yes. Good, then, would I deign to do
him a favor?
“What was it?”
The professor cleared his throat. He was evidently on a delicate
mission. Had I ever heard of Dr. Martin Luther of Wittenberg
University? I had,--a tolerably well-known preacher and scholar. My
visitor then opened his business.
“Then, very noble Graf, I am come to you to crave a favor. His
Lordship the Freiherr will bear testimony to this Dr. Martin’s piety,
sincerity, and zeal.”
“Gladly,” assented the gentleman warmly; “never do I miss the parish
church when he preaches. My wife and most of Wittenberg call him
everything but a saint; and better, he is a right manly man. _He_ is
no sailor in the ship with Tetzel.”
“Ah!” interposed Carlstadt promptly; “your Lordship has said it. He
_is_ no friend of Tetzel’s. The tale of the preaching at Jüterbog
has come to his ears, and has driven him almost frantic. This
morning, being filled up with stories of the indulgence hawking,
he shut himself in his study at the Augustinian convent, and all
day has wrought on certain theses--propositions, your Lordships
understand,--which he proposes for public debate. In them he
assails Tetzel rightly but rashly. ‘God willing,’ he vowed when I
remonstrated, ‘I will make a hole in his drum!’ But that is not the
worst. I have had a glimpse of the theses. They contain many things
that Tetzel and his Dominican friends can wrestle into downright
heresy, even attacks upon the power and prerogative of His Holiness
the Pope.”
“Your Dr. Martin must be a very Hercules to rouse that Cerberus,” I
threw out, smiling.
“The Graf does not know him. He would walk to the stake as cheerfully
as to dinner, if only he felt that plain duty summoned him.”
“Well,” I rejoined, “that being the case, worthy Dr. Carlstadt, what
can I do for you?”
“Do? Your Nobility can do everything. You are a man of learning. You
are acquainted with Rome. You understand the sensitiveness of the
Papal Court to all innuendoes. Go to Dr. Luther; remonstrate. Point
out it is useless to dip one’s fingers in Roman ink. Urge him to let
Tetzel bray himself silent. Your influence as an experienced man of
affairs will be great. Were I not the friend of this truly pious and
learned young friar, I would not urge this; but ’tis a mighty grief
to see a man who could even hope for a bishopric throw away all
chance of promotion by a few Latin theses rashly published.”
I demurred at first, raising various objections. But the Fraiherr
reënforced Carlstadt’s petition.
“He is indeed a pious and eloquent young friar, with a notable career
before him. We have none too many such in these days. He must not be
blighted by the Dominican’s claws so early. Besides, he may breed
great scandal for the University. Go to him, then, in heaven’s name,
and talk him out of it.”
Thus it befell that, after more protesting, I consented.
* * * * *
It had been agreed I could accomplish most if I went upon my mission
alone. The lackeys of the Freiherr lighted me down the long miry
street to the Augustinian convent, which, by night, I could only
see was a tall, massive building near the eastern gate. A knocking
brought a young lay-brother to the door, who turned out to be Dr.
Luther’s famulus.[4] On explaining my business I was escorted up a
dark, winding staircase into a large study, and left alone while the
fellow went to hunt up his professor.
Two candles on a broad oaken table in one corner shed a fitful
light over the wide apartment. I saw a tall, green-tiled stove in
the opposite corner. The floor was uncarpeted. On one wall hung a
well-carved wooden crucifix, but I missed the display of crosses and
saints’ pictures I had expected in the room of such a friar. Two or
three solid, uncushioned chairs were by the table; beside the brass
candlesticks was a battered pewter mug and also a number of books,
the bindings worn and thumbed. I noted particularly a Plautus and a
Vergil--favorite authors clearly; a copy of Erasmus’s new edition of
the Greek Testament, and a Vulgate open at the 118th psalm,[5] also
the _Postilla_, a learned commentary upon the Bible by De Lyra.
Here was the room of no snoring monkish idler, manifestly; and
as surely, one could say, that of no cultured churchly sybarite.
Interested by the whole aspect and atmosphere, I was bending farther
over the books when I heard a firm step.
“Welcome, my Lord Graf,” a voice was saying heartily. The man I
sought had entered.
In the candle-light when first I saw him I could hardly distinguish
his features. I saw a man in the white Augustinian tunic. He seemed
a person of a little over middle height, his body very lean--by
fasting, I imagined--his head widely tonsured, leaving merely a
dark ring of hair. I could see enough of the face to tell that
it was rugged and interlined, but not old; distinctly a peasant
countenance; yet it was the uncouthness of strength, not of
ignorance. Then out of it all flashed eyes so bright, so keen, that
the word of condescending salutation halted on my lips. I removed my
cap silently. Kings, emperors, popes I have met, but never one of
whom first instinct spoke as of that tonsured monk, “A master.”
“I have the honor to meet Dr. Luther?” I asked, with a diffidence not
my wont; and he, looking on me frankly, extended a wide hand. His
voice, clear as a deep bell, added to the influence of his eyes.
“Martin Luther, Augustinian friar, lecturer on theology, preacher
to the convent, vicar to the priory, pastor to the parish,--and
generally struggling with flesh and blood, the devil, and the world.
See what an idle man I am! and now how may I serve you?”
Very diffidently--I could have faced the Prince Elector with greater
ease--I explained my errand, Carlstadt’s fears, my own experience,
and the friendly intent of my mission. Dr. Luther proffered me a
chair, and threw on the table a small pile of papers, motioning for
me to peruse them.
“Oh! my brave Carlstadt,” he cried in broad Saxon, whilst I examined.
“All fears to-day, hot flame to-morrow! Whither will your weasel
courage jump next? A merry day for the Church and poor Christians
when all we theologians are of your fine boldness! Well, your
Lordship, do you find in those black marks on white sheets anything
very heretical?”
“Magister Doctor,” said I, trying once more to use my best Florentine
Latin, and beginning already to dislike my task; “I am not learned in
the niceties of theology; but in these ninety-five theses here, which
I gather are propositions concerning Tetzel’s indulgences that you
wish to propound for public debate, I fear are certain matters which
you would wisely moderate here and there, lest you raise greater
scandal for the Church than that which you so piously endeavor to
quell.”
“Moderate? How many, your Lordship?” His hand fell vehemently on the
table.
“Why, not a few, to speak the candid truth. For instance, you
say ‘Every Christian, truly contrite, has full remission from
both punishment, and guilt, even without letters of indulgence.’
‘Christians should be taught that he who gives to a poor man, or
lends to needy man, does better than if he bought pardons’; or, more
especially, ‘We affirm that Papal pardons cannot take away even the
least of venial sin, as regards its guilt.’ There are a great many
more in like vein. I am bound to tell you, reverend Doctor, such
utterances are exceedingly unwise.”
“Unwise? And does your Lordship tell me you approve of Tetzel’s
blasphemies and filching from our miserable bewitched peasantry? God
forbid!”
“God forbid, say I likewise. I myself have told the rascal to his
face all that I think of him. But, learned Sir, it is plain you do
not understand what troubles I would spare you. If Tetzel’s were the
only back to smart, I would full merrily cry ‘Lay on!’ But who is
Tetzel? A pawn on the great Church chess board. In attacking him whom
do you attack? His masters, Albrecht, Prince-Archbishop of Mainz, the
great banking house of the Fuggers,--and last, but not least, His
Holiness himself.”
“The Archbishop and the Pope? The Graf is jesting. Heaven keep me
from thinking so foully of them! Tetzel exceeded his mandate in his
preaching. On hearing my complaints they will silence him.”
“Tetzel exceeded his mandate? Yes. So I told him at Jüterbog. And I
will tell you his answer. ‘My chest is exceeding heavy, and that is
all the Archbishop of Mainz and the Pope are likely to ask about.’
And the artful fox is wholly right.”
The Augustinian had sprung from his chair, and began pacing the
room with quick, nervous strides. He twisted and untwisted his long
powerful arms.
“The Pope and the Archbishop? It cannot be! It cannot be! No little
theses of mine can disturb such great men. Can a sparrow destroy an
elephant? At worst they will merely ignore my charges, and let Tetzel
weave his own rope to hang himself.”
“I fear the learned Doctor is wrong,” I said; “allow me to play the
prophet. If you publish those theses against Tetzel, in six months
your name will be blazoned all over Christendom as little better than
a heretic.”
I thought I saw the friar’s face turn pale, but he only paused,
crossed himself hurriedly, and muttered “Impossible.”
“By no means impossible. It is because, even in these brief moments,
I come to take an interest in your Reverence’s honor and welfare
which I cannot explain even to myself, I urge this again. Believe
me, I know Italy and I know Rome. I am no fox-hunting northern
ritter, better at brawling than at books. I have learned my Latin
at Florence, my Greek at Padua. Hardly six months since I sat at
cards with His Holiness. I speak with knowledge. Delve in philosophy
and abstract theology as you will. The Pope is tolerant. He permits
any subtle message to the learned. But these theses here will speak
like booming cannon to the myriad laity. They will dry up one of
the richest sources of Roman revenue. As you love a venerable name,
honor, churchly promotion, do not touch the Pope’s, or the Pope’s
lieutenant’s, money bags.”
“A question?” the other stood straight before me and held me fixed by
the power of his wonderful eyes.
“I will answer,” I replied uneasily.
“Tell me, then, Graf von Regenstein: do you urge me to suppress these
theses because what I say in them is untrue, or because what I say in
them is unwise?”
“Unwise, utterly unwise.”
“Then Tetzel must continue to play the Simon Magus with his lecherous
villainy?”
“For a while, yes. One must endure him now, as one bears the plague.
He is mortal.”
“But meantime he will continue to hoodwink and plunder from
thousands?”
“I presume so.”
The friar seemed to grow a foot taller. Thunderbolts seemed springing
out of his countenance. Unconsciously he lifted his hands on high,
and raised his voice as in the pulpit before his people.
“Oh! dear Lord Jesus Christ: when Thou didst die for sinful me upon
the cross, shall I draw back from my sworn task when Thy word is
being defied, Thy little children led astray, Thy holy gospel brought
into contempt, and the devil’s wolves and hirelings are raging within
the fold, and all because this noble Graf here says it will blast my
chance of worldly greatness, and even expose me to the slanders of
evil men. Oh! let rather this poor carcass of mine, which folk call
Martin Luther, go straight to the scorching flame, than that I show
such contempt for all Thy love, sacrifice, and bloody sweat.”
Never in my life--and though not old, I had lived through many a
strange scene--had I experienced the sensations I did when that
trumpet call sounded in my ears. It came like a blast from another
world, speaking a tongue I knew not, though every word I understood.
For here was a man speaking good Latin, and with learned books on his
table. He was no bead-counting, unwashed Italian hermit run after by
an adoring country-side. No crack-brained lay enthusiast. No smugly
hypocritical mendicant seeking an alms. And behold! he was speaking
of “the Love of Christ” as of a very intimate and wholly tangible
thing, and meeting my cry of “expediency” with an argument before
which all my skilfully wrought reasonings would fly back blunted. And
yet I would not retire thus. I also rose from my seat.
“Your Reverence speaks eloquently, but your heart masters your
head. Granted your willingness to make great sacrifice, you must in
any case be sure your sacrifice will achieve its end. I tell you,
therefore, in all fairness, I believe you will be speedily silenced,
and your memory condemned.”
“St. Stephen was silenced. That was no reason to him for denying his
Lord, though no doubt the Jews condemned his memory.”
“But your Reverence can do vast good in a long life if you will only
be discreet to-day. Public gossip makes you a bishop ere very long.
Your piety is famous.”
“Fools will babble folly. My piety is but as filthy rags. A noble
bishop would I make to my people, when I bought the mitre at the
price of my soul!”
“Believe me,” I said deprecatingly, “I have no brief for Master
Tetzel. Haste is never a good councillor. If you will but consider
carefully you will find a thousand reasons for caution. As Aristotle
says--”
Again I struck sparks from his eyes.
“Quote to me no Aristotle, Sir Graf, as to my duty. Quote God’s
word--but nothing pagan.” But he checked himself; “Ei!” with a laugh
he continued, “who am I to bandy proud words with your gracious
Lordship? Be seated again; hear me out patiently, then call me a mad
fool all you will.”
So I sat, hearkening while he paced the room, talking very fast.
“Peasant born I am, and peasant I am like to remain in speech and
thought till God orders otherwise. Many a day as a boy have I seen my
mother toiling under a load of sticks too heavy for her weak back. I
have been schoolboy at Eisenach, student at Erfurt, and then friar at
Erfurt and Wittenberg, but I am peasant still. Pardon therefore my
blunt uncourtly speech. My tongue is a bow that sends arrows straight
at the mark; your Lordship will forgive me.”
“No more apologies. Proceed, I beg you.”
“In years past I have gone down all the paths of monkery,--fast,
flagellation, vigils, long prayers; I have tried them all. If, as
Paul would say, ‘I could glory after the flesh,’ even I, sinful
Martin Luther, could claim to be pious, righteous, holy. And yet, I
say to you, Graf von Regenstein, my monk’s merits were as nothing,
nothing. My soul was in exquisite torment. I feared hourly the pangs
and anguish of hell. My righteousness I knew was but as worthless
dross. Then--no matter how--it came to me that it was not by the
merits of Martin the Sinner but of Christ the Righteous that I would
be justified. That all the outward things men call ‘holy’ are ‘holy’
only so far as they are tokens of that inner light and hope within.
My soul was born again, and unto peace. And with that peace which the
world cannot give came keen desire to pass my hope to my fellow-men
also.”
He paused an instant, and asked, “You do not catch my drift?”
“Not wholly, Magister Doctor,” replied I, following his pacings with
my eyes, fascinated.
“Good, then. I will explain. God has given me some slight gifts as a
preacher and teacher to stir the hearts of men. Here in Wittenberg I
have, week after week, given my message, ‘not fasts, not pilgrimages,
not indulgences, but the pure heart, the humble mind, will buy the
way to the kingdom of heaven.’ Nay more; zealous friends have thrust
upon me the honors of the doctorate. And as doctor of theology I have
sworn ever to expound and defend the truth. And now what has come
to pass?” He struck his hands together with his increasing passion.
“Tetzel! Fox, ass, chattering ape, mountebank! I leave God to judge
his soul! Task enough it is to acquit mine own. But he has come
to Jüterbog, as close as he might to this my own town and people.
My Wittenbergers, whom I have chided for their sins, and urged to
repentance, come home to me boasting their indulgence sheets and
their self-righteousness. And I know, and you Sir Graf know, and
Carlstadt knows, and all honest and learned men know it is vile
deceit and fiends’ villainy. And yet you and Carlstadt still cry
‘peace, peace,’ when if I should hold my peace surely the very stones
would cry out to shame my unfaithfulness.”
Never in my life did I return to an argument with greater reluctance.
Indeed, I own that I was mightily inclined to rejoin, “Go, then, in
your sublime folly. Earn martyrdom, and some day even this world will
bless you!” But I was more resolved than ever not to see an honest
man ruined by his own virtues.
“Learned Doctor,” answered I, “in eloquence I cannot match you. The
nobility of your preaching I do not doubt. Yet even a righteous and
rightful champion does not charge in the lists rashly. Tetzel is but
a cloud in the ecclesiastical firmament. The wind will scatter him.
Long after his indulgences have been tattered I trust you will preach
to the good folk of Wittenberg, and lead them to your way of truth.
But how will you preach to ‘your Wittenbergers’ when your case comes
before the stern twelve judges of the Papal Rota, after you have gone
to Rome for your trial? You may never see Wittenberg and Germany
more. Even martyrdom comes best, when it comes amongst one’s own
people.”
Again he halted. I thought I detected the least hesitancy when he
resumed his pacings.
“Behind the Rota is the Pope,” he answered. “I have heard Leo is a
very kindly man.”
“Kindly? even so, as I have experienced, but his kindness is for
his associates,--artists, poets, boon companions. Consider what
manner of man he really is,--his experience in your manner of
holiness. Tonsured when a boy of seven, too young to conceive the
meaning of his sacred vows; ever immersed in worldly affairs; more
concerned with French alliances than with the betterment of the
Church; continually in debt, so that 500,000 ducats per year still
leave him crying ‘poverty.’ Around him is a swarm of ever hungry
and begging bishops and cardinals. He is full of expensive schemes,
from building St Peter’s church to conquering the Duchy of Urbino.
And you--reverend Doctor, will be chargeable with one great crime;
namely, you have lessened His Holiness’s revenues. Deny the Blessed
Trinity if you will; blaspheme the Holy Mother; call St. Paul a pagan
and St. Peter a Mohammedan. All these you may do, and in the end find
your lot a milder one. His Holiness will probably never pass upon
your appeals. You will never find the money to bribe your way to an
interview with even a powerful cardinal. The Vatican will speak once.
You will be crushed.”
“Do not exaggerate,” interposed the friar, I thought somewhat
quailing at my onset. “Never will I believe the Pope is what you say.
Yet even then my blast will be a mere puff on a horse-trough. Tetzel
will fume a little, perhaps a few of his betters will gnaw their
lips. That will be all. If I diminish his bad gains but fifty gulden,
I am satisfied.”
“You forget, Magister Doctor,” I rejoined, “that behind Tetzel is his
whole powerful Dominican order, who will fly as one wolf-pack against
the defamer of their fellow. The Dominicans are all-potent at Rome.
They never forgive an enemy.”
“And they call themselves _Christian_ friars,” he repeated bitterly,
standing by the table.
“They will malign your motive, imputing it to jealousy that your own
order was not given the indulgence hawking.”
“Men like Tetzel will do anything,” he assented gloomily.
“Then, my dear Doctor Luther,” I cried, resolving to strike while the
iron seemed hot, “I have convinced you. The theses are unwise. Leave
Tetzel to his sins. They will punish him. See--I will burn the papers
in the candle.”
As I held out my hand, the packet was seized from it by force
irresistible. Over me stood the friar, all transfigured by his
passion.
“No!--while God rules in heaven! Let my right hand forget her
cunning, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, let my poor
body crumble to ashes in the flame,--but I will do that to which my
Master summons me. When I set pen to paper I had not dreamed of all
this you tell. But shall I be bold in the morning, and craven at
nightfall? Not so. This is God’s battle. And if He must be crucified
afresh, thrice blessed am I if counted worthy to suffer with Him!
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, but I will remember the
name of the Lord, our God!”
The room was very still for a moment. I rose awkwardly and took my
cap.
“Reverend Doctor,” I said stiffly, moving towards the door, “I leave
you. I have no other arguments. I could have refuted you out of
Aristotle, Plato, or Aquinas, but not out of the Psalter. And I pray
one prayer--that all whereof I have warned may prove forever untrue.”
But as I was going out, he came over to me, and with a familiarity
impossible to resent laid his hand with honest brotherly touch upon
my shoulder.
“Oh, dear young Graf,” said he, lapsing out of Latin into Saxon;
“forgive my bluntness. My heart is moved for you. Truly I fear you
have been in Italy, where a ‘bon Christian,’ as they say, of our old
German honesty and piety is utterly despised. Somehow your manner
tells me the word and love of Christ is not the thing most precious
in your sight. Oh! seek humbly for a new and better mind,--be not
Italian, but German; for whether Martin Luther lives or dies, the
Fatherland will have need for all brave young nobles such as you.”
How could I answer this? The whole interview had been one of strange
sensations.
“Dear Doctor,” I said, with churlish simplicity, “be sure I shall
remember all you say.”
* * * * *
Once back at the Steinitz mansion, the Freiherr inquired the success
of my errand.
“I have failed absolutely,” I replied. “I have battered my head
against a stone wall. But,” I added, “your friar Martin is the
noblest fool in Germany. Doomed to be silenced, probably to be
burned: I admire and honor him still!”
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Heads of the City Council.
[4] A kind of half-assistant, half disciple of a German professor.
[5] A favorite psalm of Luther’s.
CHAPTER X
THE HAMMER STROKES
Long afterward I heard the story that on the night of October 30th
of that year of grace, 1517, while the Elector Frederick of Saxony
tarried at Schweinitz (a goodly distance from Wittenberg) he dreamed
a dream, which in the morning he said “he could not forget, though
he lived a thousand years.” A monk there had been, a son of Paul the
Apostle, writing upon the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg,
and in letters so large they could be read clear in Schweinitz, and
using a goose-quill of such a length that it reached to Rome, pierced
there the ear of a lion, so that it roared with pain, and then struck
the triple crown of the Pope, so that it nigh toppled from his head.
I do not pass on the truth of this story. Let every man be his own
judge from the things which followed. I only know that I awakened
that morning after a troubled sleep,--somewhat interrupted by
roistering students in the street,--and lay long on my host’s great
feather bed. I was very ill at ease. The interview of the preceding
evening had shaken my self-complacency utterly. Here was I, Walter
von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein, or Di Palaestro, as you wished,
accounted young, high-born, rich, with a thousand puissant friends,
with any fortune short of a dukedom open to me, a master fencer and
dancer, learned in all that the Hellenes and Latins could give me
from Thales to Hermes Trismegistus, able to write Italian sonnets and
Latin orations, to criticize a picture, to defend a philosophy--and
yet I was profoundly dissatisfied with this ‘myself’, and must needs
ask the reason? And the answer presently came--that it was because
since I had come to Germany, I had met two persons,--a mountain
maiden and more lately an Augustinian friar. They had taught me
that there was another world of moral and spiritual values wherein
I had not so much as entered. Gräfin Ilsa had perhaps only reached
the threshold of that new Empire; and pitiful indeed were her pains
and stumblings whilst she tried to enter in. Martin Luther had long
since passed inside, and what he had said to me sounded as strange
words,--tales by a traveller from the far Antipodes, telling of
things he had seen, but which the common language was too feeble to
paint to the unimaginative dwellers at home. The problem baffled me.
Left thus without solution I fell into a kind of anger, not at these
twain, but at myself. After all, I was not so wise as my conceit had
told me. Well, then, years were still left to learn. Should I not
attack this new problem in the same cold scientific spirit in which
Messere Leonardo da Vinci attacked a new problem in engineering or
architecture? And the solution could not fail too long in the finding.
That morning I roamed the long street of Wittenberg, half expecting
to meet Dr. Luther, but he kept to his convent, and I began to
suspect my arguments had carried their weight after all. It was a
clear, cold, windy morning. I was glad of my cloak. Walking eastward
from the town, I came to the mighty Elbe winding its swift course
along the sear autumn plain. A few sail-boats were struggling with
the wind and current, but most of the level brown country was
deserted. Finding little of interest, I returned again to the town,
where I found a procession winding along, escorting a newly capped
graduate in his magister’s gown and hood, surrounded by various
University dignitaries,--all headed for some friendly wein-stube and
a merry afternoon. But just as the company disappeared in the tavern,
I saw two monkish figures coming westward from the Augustinian
Convent and headed for the Schloss-Kirche; and at sight of one of
those figures I made haste to follow after them.
Dr. Martin Luther and a young disciple, the later famous Johann
Agricola, were moving steadily down the Collegien-strasse. The doctor
carried a hammer clutched firmly in his right hand; in his left
flapped a packet of long white papers,--papers I had seen before. He
went forward, with his head held high, a little defiantly, even. His
eyes were brighter than ever; his shaven cheeks seemed pale. When he
saw me, he wheeled and held out his hand with his hearty laugh.
“A fair day, noble Graf. And so you are ready to see me trample your
fine words underfoot. Am I not a grateful fellow for all your trouble
and courtesy!”
“I am pleased if you are pleased, dear Doctor,” said I, while my
fingers cracked under his grasp; “and as for my prophesies, I hope
they all will blow away on this wind. The decision is yours, not
mine.”
“Ah!” cried the other, “too much imprudence displeases men: too
much prudence displeases God. You will pardon again my uncourtly
bluntness. And now let us on to the Schloss-Kirche.”
Worthy Master Agricola explained to me as we went before that the
door of the Castle Church was the regular bulletin board for the
University. The others talked. I perforce lapsed into silence. Yet it
seemed a very simple thing to do. I can see everything that happened
as clearly as though it were yesterday.
I stood in the street under the lofty round tower while Doctor
Martin, and Agricola (hanging a bit timidly behind), strode up to the
side door of the Schloss-Kirche. We were near the gate. A produce
cart pulled by two brown dogs yoked along with a brown country maid,
rattled by, dimming the hammer strokes. Three jaunty students halted
to cast glances at the girl, pulling away at their young mustaches,
and I heard “At the Black Eagle to-night; smacking beer there, pretty
women.” A young pig slipped from his sty outside the gate, ran past,
grunting, with his owner’s son in angry chase. Old Willy, the blind
church beggar, shuffled up to me, rattling the pfennigs in his pewter
mug, and not to be denied another copper. The keen breeze would send
the Doctor’s papers flying, yet he pounded away doggedly, reaching to
Agricola for more nails, making every corner fast, while his black
cassock flapped in the wind. Then he stepped back, and slipped the
hammer in a pocket. Willy wandered back into the church. The pig was
chased out of the gate. The students, anxious for the latest academic
notice, drew nigh the papers. Three necks craned: craned yet further.
No ordinary announcement of allocutions, evidently.
“Jesu-Maria!” I caught the mutter; and behold! two more had joined
them, then a third, and three others. And ere one could think it,
twenty seemed conning the Latin upon that church door, while others
were swarming like bees out of every tall gabled house; out of every
beer and wine cellar. And like bees went the buzzing of their voices.
I saw the priests of the parish church coming; I saw the
golden-chained and bearded ritters of the schloss; I saw also the
venerable burgomaster. Dr. Martin was turning quietly away. Men were
as yet too amazed to question him. A little firmer were those strong
lips; a little deeper seemed the glint in his eyes: but he was calm,
apparently triumphant.
“Dear Doctor,” I said, “you should be satisfied. You have awakened
the dragon. Now if you are St. George, you will slay him.”
“I shall try, God helping me.” That was all he said; again however,
his hand went out, and again we clasped, I think even harder than
before.
“You are a brave man, Dr. Martin,” I said, “and may the heaven you
know so well give you full courage.”
But here Carlstadt and another professor swept up to him with long
faces, and hurried him thence, deep in talk; nor did I see him again
that day.
* * * * *
And so it began. A windy street, a few long strips of paper, twelve
firmly planted nails, a group of feather-brained students,--the deed
brave and holy that was to shake the world. The commonplace act of a
peasant-born monk protesting against what he deemed a wrong. “Not by
might nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord.”
But how could I know it then? For the moment I was sorely troubled
in heart, having seen a brave and honest man do what I deemed a
hopelessly imprudent thing.
* * * * *
That night began a sound in Wittenberg that was never to cease, while
Leo at Rome and all his cardinals must needs hold council long and
late--the clang of the printing press spreading Dr. Luther’s theses
to all the world. Written in Latin they were speedily turned into
German. They went in every merchant’s bale, every pedlar’s pack,
north, south, east, west. In fourteen days they were in every corner
of Germany; in a month they had gone to the ends of Christendom; “as
though,” said a chronicler of that which came to pass, “the angels
were the postmen.” And everywhere men learned and men ignorant talked
thereof, some applauding, some condemning, but all attending. My
prediction that the theses would prove a spark in the ecclesiastical
magazine was verified sooner than I had dreamed.
Whether they would prove the ruin of their bold author, time alone
would tell. Carlstadt was still very dubious; Dr. Schurf, professor
of law, expostulated vehemently with his colleague. From Hamburg came
a letter from Albert Kranz, the famous historian. “You have truth on
your side, brother Martin, but you cannot succeed. Poor monk,--get
you to your cell, and cry ‘O God have mercy upon me.’” From Erfurt,
Dr. Luther’s old university, came words of caution and cold cheer.
So from some; but there were abundant words in another vein,--words
of praise, comfort, approval. As for the friar, I can still see him,
sitting at the great oak table in his convent chamber, and penning to
Link, his prior at Erfurt, “If the work be of God, who shall prevent
it? If it be of man, who shall promote it? Not my will, nor their
will, nor our will, but _Thy_ will, O Heavenly Father, be done.”
So the clouds gathered, and we began to watch for the lightnings.
With Dr. Luther I was often, very often; for there was a property
about this man, which later I found was even in his theology; one
either hated him, or loved him: one could have no half acquaintance.
And what a man he was to know! Very human, very shrewd in worldly
judgment, though sometimes touched by ‘another worldliness’ which
was utterly disconcerting. He talked of himself, his student life
at Eisenach and Erfurt, his later career as a friar, with naïve
frankness. All Wittenberg called him blameless and pious, and so he
surely was, observing all the fasts and enjoined abstinences of his
order with an abnegation worthy of a St. Francis: yet on a feast day
I can still see him, sitting behind the green stove, a mug of beer
upon the table, and across his knees his mellow lute, strumming the
strings with no clumsy fingers, and singing with deep, strong voice
Latin student songs that were anything but Misereres. Very early I
remarked his fondness for music, and his answer was characteristic.
“Yes, for where good music is, and an honest song, there the devil
knows there is no spoil for him, and flaps his black wings away.”
If my Roman companions had seen me daily walking, talking, dining
with this Augustinian friar, who was already setting the world by
the ears, I do not think they would have believed their own sight.
And why was I so fascinated? I could not explain even to myself.
Surely, I meditated, I had not become more convinced of this friar’s
theology--it was not proved valid because _he_ believed it, and my
Roman friends did not. Nor was he extraordinarily learned in the
pagan classics, although I found him a very adequate Latin scholar,
with a fair foundation in Greek. Nor was I greatly charmed by the
social life in Wittenberg. The Steinitz family were delightful
hosts, but I found few congenial spirits among the gentlemen at the
Electoral Schloss.
Perhaps I dared not then to admit even to my own soul wherefore I let
myself linger into the winter at this meanly famed and dull town of
Wittenberg; yet in the after days I think I knew the reason,--Gräfin
Ilsa was still in the city.
The young gräfin had unfolded as a rosebud under the sun in the
genial warmth of her kinsfolk’s cultured home,--so different from the
tawdry savagery of Schloss Blankenburg. What to me was a small and
stupid town, was to her a thriving and delightful metropolis. The
gallant attentions of the official folk of the city were as charming
and unaccustomed to her as they were commonplace to me. Less and
less she seemed the grave nun, or the chattering mountain maiden,
and more and more the noblewoman--the bearer of a long and honored,
if slightly tarnished name. Stately and wise she seemed, and grew
more so day by day, taking the pleasant homage as her rightful due,
until I heard two under-captains swearing over their wine that “The
Gräfin of Blankenburg was handsome as the new snow, but,--holy St.
Agatha!--equally cold to all their gallantries.” A fact, however,
which left them still her slaves.
Only to one person she never showed the well-moderated hauteur
she displayed to the others. That person was myself. As far as I
could discover, she regarded me as almost on an equality with her
brother,--a kind of kinsman, or even cousin, to treat with all manner
of confidences, without the need of any great thing to follow.
“Are we not both from the Harzland, and are not Blankenburg and
Regenstein very near?” she said once, as in kind of apology for
repeating the over-polite remarks of a certain Von Benningen at a
recent skating party on the marshes by the Elbe.
“You are very happy in Wittenberg these days, Ilsa?” said I. (We had
dropped formal titles between ourselves, long since.)
“Of course. It is all as a new world to me. Am I disloyal to the
Harzland in preferring a winter here to the dreary mountain snow and
cold? But I will tell you something. Listen close.”
A disagreeable sensation seized me. She was about to confess an
admiration for some more notable ritter than Von Benningen. Why,
however, that should trouble me, I really did not understand.
“I am listening,” I rejoined.
“Well, then. It is Dr. Martin’s sermons. A letter from Aunt Theckla
says she fears he is an unwise and heretical man, but I know even she
must be wrong. I hear him every day he preaches in the Pfarr-kirche.
I cannot understand all that he says, at least not to repeat it.
But somehow his words are like the cool cloth that was laid on
my forehead whilst I burned with the fever. I go away feeling so
comforted!”
“And how comforted?” I asked, slightly amused.
“Why, he makes me feel that God is not so terrible and austere
after all; that He is not so anxious to thrust folk into hell as to
keep them out of it; that He is kind and piteous and loving, and
understands that we cannot all do great works of holiness like the
saints. The other day he even made me believe--if I _really_ heard
aright--that it was proper, nay best, to pray direct to the Lord
Jesus Christ, and not to any intercessor or saint.”
“Dr. Martin is an upright and eloquent man. I am glad he has brought
you such comfort. But what do you gather as to saints’ relics and
good works?”
“Do you know, Walter,” she made answer, “I do not think he says out
all he believes. Yet I seem to gather that saints’ relics are not
bad, provided they are genuine, and are venerated only to recall the
Christian virtues of the holy martyrs; as for good works, they must
be performed as signs that the love of Christ is in our hearts, but
not out of a selfish hope to buy our way to heaven.”
“And you forgive him, then, for destroying your confidence in Master
Tetzel.”
Her usually mild eyes sparkled angrily. “Master Tetzel is a sinful
and deceiving man. Do not name him before me.”
Clearly, then, Dr. Luther had robbed the good Dominican of at least
one noble customer, and I soon had reason to believe he had spoiled
the trade of others. For after the first weeks of wavering I began to
gather indubitable signs that if the bold Augustinian had awakened
enemies he had also won countless friends. “He has said what we
desired to say and dared not,”--such was the burden of innumerable
letters, and they came in ever increasing volume from every quarter
of Germany; from ermined doctors, girded noblemen, elegant burghers,
and from hundreds of poor but honest souls, until I began to wonder
whether I had played the wise part, when like Cassandra, I had
prophesied him evil.
Dr. Luther’s correspondence grew to that of a bishop. Many a day when
I came to solicit a stroll by the icy river he must needs put me
off to toil on his letters with Spalatin, the Elector’s high-minded
confessor and spiritual counsellor, and fifty other learned men; or
to write retorts pungent and pithy to the abusive counter-theses
which Tetzel and his Dominicans had hasted to fling against him. “The
more they rage, the more I go forward,” he had asserted merrily, when
friends spoke still of danger; and he challenged anybody charging him
with heresy, and who wished “to chew iron and blow up rocks,” to come
to Wittenberg and argue it out,--a good table and a quiet lodging
would be provided. So the storm beat, and I presently brought to Dr.
Luther an Italian letter to the effect that the news of his utterance
had spread even to Rome, where His Holiness, as yet unalarmed,
looked on the whole matter as a mere squabble betwixt jealous monks.
“Brother Martin,” said the Pope, “has a very fine head!”
“And do you hold, Sir Graf,” asked the friar, “to your prophesies of
evil now?”
I fear I smiled with a superior wisdom. “Ah! Dear Dr. Martin. We will
know a little better after the Pope understands that the indulgence
money has ceased to flow in.”
Thus we went through December very pleasantly, and were entering
January, when of a sudden Ilsa’s delightful sojourn ended, and
mine with hers. A letter from Abbess Theckla was the bearer of
ill-tidings. “Your father,” ran the substance, “lies sorely ill at
Blankenburg. Hasten back to him, or come too late.” There was but
one thing to do. Moritz would escort her. As for me, I had too long
trenched on the hospitality of their kinsfolk. We had to set forth
hurriedly, and I had only time for a brief word with Dr. Martin.
Again he held my hand before the departure.
“Fare you well, dear Graf Walter, and the good God keep you. And if
poor Martin Luther has any word that may ring truly in your ears,
remember you are a Christian and a knight. Seek God with a clear
heart, and leave the rest to Him, and He will bring to pass that
which is beyond all that you can ask or think.”
A Christian and a knight?--I?--But not stopping to inquire into
his injunction, I thanked him warmly. I promised to return in
three months to Wittenberg, bringing him various books then at the
Regenstein. Ilsa knelt for his blessing. Moritz and I respectfully
veiled our caps. We rode out across the winter country, with the
Wittenberg church spires long in sight. I was not to reënter the
little Saxon city until after a momentous interval. As I rode
westward, perhaps it was Dr. Martin’s last words which recalled Dame
Hedwig’s prophecy, and I mused considerably thereon.
“Half of Northland,
Half of Southland,
Never gay
Till all of one land.”
After all, which was it to be? Was I to prove German or Italian?
CHAPTER XI
I COME TO MAINZ
On our travel we had abundant chances to measure popular opinion
touching Dr. Luther. Whether on the road, or halting for dinner at
the inns, or lodging for the night with some hospitable nobleman,
the remark “we are from Wittenberg,” was the signal for numerous
questions, followed by comments almost invariably friendly to the
hardy Augustinian, whilst the views expressed about his monkish
maligners were frequently violent.
“No, by my father’s bones!” swore an impetuous ritter as we left his
schloss one morning; “we have had enough of priest-made bonfires with
honest men, who have told the black crows their sins, thrust into
them; and ere they light one for Martin Luther, there’ll be a mighty
clattering of swords from every ‘circle’ of Germany.”
The good nobleman was by no means alone in his vehemence. In the
tap-room of the inn at Dessau, where we broke the journey, I was
silent witness to a colloquy betwixt a stout, shrewd Leipzig merchant
coming from Lubeck with salt-cod and soap, and a strong-lunged,
red-nosed creature who wished to be taken for a friar. The latter
had liquor in his crown, and had been delivering himself against
Wittenberg as “tainted with heresy,” and its professor as “a mad man,
a seducer, and a wizard possessed by the devil.” As he paused for
breath the merchant charged in on him heartily.
“Crack-brain and wizard, is he? Well, who, Master Friar, is
responsible for his folly?”
“Why, the devil, of course.”
“Say, rather, those long-frocked devils, you ‘cheese hunters,’[6]
whereof your Tetzel is the master fiend.”
“_Malefice!_” howled the friar, “what have we here,--a Bohemian
infidel?”
“A poor honest Christian, and much at your worshipful service,” the
merchant was just drunk enough to bow ironically, “and of a mind to
tell you that your merry dance is nearly over, and that the musicians
will be asking their penny. Rome is your city; go there then, and ask
alms of your ‘Apostolic Father.’ We Germans grow weary.”
“Don’t blaspheme the holy Pope,” stormed the other.
“I can’t blaspheme what isn’t holy. You’ve heard the saying, ‘If hell
there be, Rome is built over it.’ Just as the wolf preached and sung
masses to gather the geese around him, and then ate them all, so
priest and prelate promise all things, and pretend to love our souls
till they get their benefices, and then--prutt!” his diatribe ended
with a contemptuous gesture.
“Is there no man here,” cried the friar at the top of his voice, “to
hale this fellow to the inquisitor?”
“Is there no man here to hale this fellow to the horse pond,”
retorted the merchant, and a dozen hands were ready to obey the
suggestion, when the host enforced a kind of truce.
The friar slunk away, not one in the tap-room failing to fling
ribaldry after him. When I went out, a tapster was telling amid roars
how Tetzel had sold an indulgence for _premeditated_ assault and
robbery to a Saxon nobleman and had been _himself_ a few days later
soundly thrashed, then pillaged by his pious customer; while another
traveller had already recited how the Wittenberg students had burned
a copy of Tetzel’s counter theses, as being in turn heretical,
“giving them the fate, God knows, which they deserve.”
Thus it was on all the journey back to the Harzland. Our travel was
clouded by the manifest anxiety of Ilsa lest she arrive too late to
find her father alive. I pitied her drawn lips and anxious eyes; her
respite at Wittenberg had been such a joyous one, and all too short.
In my sympathy for her, and in her willingness to turn to any one
who might afford hope and comfort, we were drawn more together than
ever. If we were not yet lovers, my relations to her were already
exceedingly brotherly. I could see that Moritz was remarking as much
with sly and friendly eyes.
“You forget that I also have ears, Ilsa,” he remarked once meaningly;
“you keep all your fine talk for Walter.”
The little Gräfin colored and let me alone for the next hour’s ride,
but the next day we were more friendly than ever.
Near Blankenburg we met news, welcome indeed to Ilsa; not so welcome
for me (who heartily wished the venerable wretch dead, and his
daughter through mourning him). Graf Eckbert was still alive, and
despite his evil courses his tough old frame seemed like to keep his
soul from his last deserts for some months longer. He was utterly
helpless, however, and the ribald clowns around him were wholly unfit
nurses.
Ilsa’s mouth grew firm when she comprehended the situation.
“He is my father,” she said gravely. “So long as he lives my place is
at his side.”
* * * * *
Her decision, of course, destroyed my pleasure for the rest of the
winter. It was impossible for me to see her; save at very rare
intervals. She would not join Moritz and myself in a gallop over
the frozen crust, for might not the end come at any instant? Moritz
himself felt bound not to quit Schloss Blankenburg too frequently.
Despite, therefore, the glory of ice and snow upon the hills and
gorges I could hardly bring myself to await the end of the winter in
the barren halls of the Regenstein, with only Adolf and Andrea for
company. I could hardly return at once to Wittenberg, and, therefore,
I resolved to go to the Rhine lands, and present letters which I had
to the Archbishop of Mainz’s elegant court. I went the more willingly
because I believed I might be able to win the favor of that mighty
prelate, and influence him in behalf of Dr. Luther.
The day before I set forth, I rode across to Blankenburg, and took
leave of Ilsa. Her brother was present and we made no attempt at many
words or sentiment. Her face showed her to be weary with watching,
but she seemed to be striving hard to seem gay when I talked of
returning “with the first buds of the spring” to join her in the
chase of a red deer over the Brocken.
“By that time,” I said, “I trust your father will be--better.”
“Yes, better--surely better,” answered she, with a tremor in her
voice, as I bowed and kissed her hand.
She let it linger under my lips perhaps a little longer than mere
courtesy demanded. Perhaps I, in turn, made no haste with the little
ceremony.
“The dear God and all His saints bless you, Walter, and bring you
safely back to me--to us,” she altered, with no lack of color in her
cheeks at this last.
I muttered some smooth civilities to her, took leave of Moritz, and
rode away.
* * * * *
All the time Adolf, Andrea, and I plodded wearily over the
snow-drifted roads of Hesse I meditated upon my own attitude toward
Ilsa. Clearly, I told myself, the young lady, once freed from the
savage gloom of Blankenburg would develop into a gracious and seemly
dame, well able to play the noble consort even to such an ambitious
personage as the Graf von Regenstein. On the other hand, I reflected,
in the cold calm manner which was my pride, that to marry such
a portionless little creature would be sheer worldly folly. Her
father’s broken condition was notorious, and could I not hope for
almost any heiress in Saxony? If, however, I _did_ desire to win
Ilsa, I made not the least doubt that the glory of an alliance in my
quarter would end any idea of a ‘vocation’ for the convent.
“Is not the little witch half in love with me already?” I
deliberated, “and am I not half in love with her myself? Fie, Graf
von Regenstein! Do not be so hasty. I am not yet resolved to spend
all my days in this cold Germany. I may not succumb to the first
flaxen-haired northern Gräfin! and whither are vanished my thoughts
of Italy--and of you, O glorious Marianna?”
Then I repeated to myself that I had a great career to carve for
myself in the world, and must not let the naïve attractiveness of the
daughter of a depraved mountain Graf (my admiration being mingled
perchance with a little pity for her condition) interfere with my
better judgment. “In two months I will see myself more clearly; it
will be time then to make up my mind as to Ilsa.”
So I completed my journey to Mainz, glad enough to see the spires
of the old Cathedral city at last and to escape from the bad roads,
and the worse hostelries. I halted at a very comfortable inn, on an
afternoon, and was sitting down to a well-cooked meal in a pleasant
room, intending to present my credentials at the Archbishop’s schloss
the next day, when I heard shouting under the windows, and the
rumbling as of a great coach passing.
“Way! way for his sacred Eminence!” outriders were bawling.
“Is it the Archbishop’s carriage?” I demanded of the serving boy.
“Oh, no, gracious Herr; it is the great Italian Cardinal of Forli; he
has come on the Pope’s business, people say.”
Forli in Mainz? And if he, then assuredly Marianna. I fear I thought
very little on Ilsa the rest of that day.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The Friars were charged with being arrant beggars of dainties.
CHAPTER XII
THE VOICE OF ITALY
An elegant and hospitable court it was which the Archbishop-Elector
Albrecht maintained at Mainz. I had no sooner made known my
credentials than I was overwhelmed with kindnesses, both from the
prince-prelate himself and all his courtiers. A kindly, open-handed,
well intentioned lord was Albrecht, young and handsome, friendly
to art and learning, pleasure loving, but not a rake. Alas!
that ambition had led him into the Church, when he had fewer
qualifications for leadership in things spiritual than had his
Arabian horses. He lived the life of a luxurious secular magnate,
with never a thought of any duty touching the ‘cure of souls’ such as
was assumed to pertain to the episcopal state. To him all Tetzel’s
doings were but a piece of clever secular business, the wrong whereof
he could never have understood had he tried. Therefore the world has
condemned him,--not because he was a knave, but because he knew not
the time and the opportunity.
Life in this old Rhineland town seemed one perpetual holiday. The
young western German nobles of the court were a mawkish lot, far
inferior to their sturdy Saxon cousins. They wore curly, blond-dyed
hair, laced tightly like women, and covered themselves with necklaces
and bracelets; likewise they affected long tight hose of startling
color, each leg of a different hue. With such gentry I had little in
common, but others whom I met, poets, scholars, and soldiers, made
my life very agreeable. Hunts, song recitals, giddy balls, and the
like, whiled away our time. Above all there was the constant company
of the Cardinale di Forli and of Marianna.
Forli, I soon learned, was in Mainz on an important mission from the
Vatican touching the impending choice of a new Emperor. Every rumor
from Vienna gave old Maximilian only a few more months, and the Pope
had cause enough to be interested in his successor. Forli’s splendid
travelling carriages and long retinue of handsome servants had made
a deep impression on the good folk of Mainz. As a concession to
Northern prudery Marianna had travelled as his “niece,” but I suspect
that many sagacious mortals guessed the truth.
At our first meeting I of course heard all the gossip from Rome,--of
the Pope’s successful stag hunts, of the nipping of a sensational
conspiracy against His Holiness’s person, and particularly of the
creation of thirty new cardinals.
“Absolutely unheard of,” Forli grumbled; “most unfair to us older
members! But the treasury was dry, and every rascal could be taxed
twenty to forty thousand ducats for his red hat. Then, too, what a
magnificent banquet we had in their honor and at their expense at the
Vatican!”
“You will be among the next creations,” threw out Marianna.
“Possibly,” I assented coldly, “but I doubt exceedingly if my career
lies in the Church.”
So ended our conversation then, but what more privately I said to
Marianna, I leave for the wise to imagine....
Pleasant indeed for me was that early springtime at Mainz. Again I
was mingling with men of gentility and ideas; again I was speaking
French, Latin, and often the incomparable Italian. Many a day I rode
back to the Electoral schloss intoxicated by the favor and beauty of
Marianna, while her tall palfrey pranced beside mine. Yet I was never
wholly at my ease. Very soon this lotus eating at Mainz would end,
and then--whither should I go? Back to Italy, to the roses, poets,
Michelangelo’s sculptures and Raffaelo’s paintings? Or to Saxony,
where the clouds of battle were gathering, where warriors were
buckling on the cuirass for a contest not with French or Turkomans,
but with powers spiritual and celestial,--and the stake the empire
over men’s souls?
Marianna pressed me, but I long evaded discussing my intents. Quickly
I had learned that arguments to turn the Prince-Archbishop in favor
of Luther were as dust sprinkled on the ocean. Already the high
prelates of Germany had prejudged his cause. “I will not lay down
my head in peace,” the Bishop of Brandenburg had vowed, “until I
cast Martin into the flames like _this_!” whereat into the roaring
fireplace he had flung a dry faggot. From Rome issued anxious orders
to “quiet the tumult.” And speedily I knew would come to Luther, to
his friends, nay, to all Germany, the direful choice--to bow to the
Vatican or join battle with Rome,--a battle older than the Church and
always lost.
And where should I stand? I who had come to think of that friar of
Wittenberg as of no other living man? I who knew that truth and
God--if God there was--were with Luther and against Tetzel and
Rome? Who had promised to revisit Wittenberg in the springtime? Who
had also given my promise to Ilsa von Blankenburg to return to the
Harzland, and to break the monotony of her barren life with her
sottish and dying father? In short, what should be my great, abiding
choice,--peace or storm, ease or knightly battle, Southland or
Northland? How would Dame Hedwig’s song find its fulfilment?...
Coward fashion I postponed decision, and then, even as I deserved,
it was thrust upon me. I was standing one afternoon at a glorious
mullioned window in an upper hall of the palace, looking out upon
the country just turning green under the northerning sun, when beside
me stood Marianna. Her black dress of Lyons silk fell around her in
lustrous sheen. On her hair were the white spring flowers I had left
at her chambers that morning. What wonder my heart beat faster!
“Well, Gualtiero,” she began in her most musical Italian; “I have
tidings for you.”
“Of what, Madonna?”
“My father is recalled to Italy. I cannot stay here alone. What--”
oh! the subtlety of her eyes as she put the question--“what are you
going to do?”
I stood for a long time sillily playing with my sword belt, and
willing to give a thousand gulden for an hour’s quiet reflection.
“_Ecco!_” she cried in her sweetest mockery. “Since the Conte di
Palaestro grew a German beard and put on German clothes he has either
lost the use of his tongue, or forgotten how to understand my Tuscan!
Do you not hear me? Am I not plain? I go back to Italy: and where go
you?”
Her hands flew out in those gestures that double the eloquence of her
race.
“A thousand pardons, Madonna,” I began awkwardly; “I had not expected
this so soon. I had expected your father would stay longer. I had not
arranged--”
“You had not arranged? You had not arranged? O Santo Spirito, you had
not intended to go back to Italy the moment the year required by His
Holiness had expired? Have you turned mad, Gualtiero?”
I dared not look her in the face. She knew her power over me, and
used it pitilessly.
“You do not answer? You do not say ‘The year expires. I am away with
you to Milan, Padua, Venice, Palaestro, instantly?’ Am I in turn of
flesh and blood and expected to endure this, when you have promised--”
I knew she was deliberately creating her passion, but that did not
make it easier to evade her. Vainly I raised a deprecating hand.
“What have I promised, Madonna?”
“Mater Dolorosa! Have you the perfidy to forget how, when you quitted
Rome, you vowed to receive me at the end of the year at Palaestro?
And _thus_ must I rate all your lip service, all your pretty speeches
and courtly attention since you came to Mainz. O Gualtiero--”
Tears, sobbing, white hands pressed to her streaming eyes, ended the
entreaty. When I approached with some effort to comfort her I was
repulsed angrily.
“None of your caresses, Eccellenza! I am but a poor cardinal’s
daughter, but I am southern born: better death than to endure
ingratitude and faithlessness. If you hesitate to return to Italy, at
least declare your reasons. Honor demands that!”
“I cannot well express them, and yet I would stay a season or so
longer in Germany.”
“Cannot express them?” her eyes were now flashing daggers. “O
miracle,--the Conte di Palaestro and his nimble tongue at a loss.
Here, then. Answer as I suggest them. You fear the vengeance of the
Archbishop of Bari?”
“Folly. He at least knows I am not the man to seek after.”
“Your castle--your noble and elegant Palazzo di Regenstein needs your
amiable watch-care over its garrison of wolf-hounds?”
“Not so.” I rejoined abruptly.
“Ah,” spoke she archly; “I think you have spoken of a lady in
a neighboring bandit’s warren; no doubt beautiful, nobly born,
learned--the Contessa di Blankenburg.”
“I would not tarry for her,” I replied, though I felt my forehead
glow guiltily.
“You find this charming German climate, with its thaws, and snows,
and winter, more delectable than the breezes from Soracte and the
Apennines?”
“Marianna,” spoke I, turning at bay at last, “do not chatter
foolishness. Those are none of my reasons.”
“Then,” said she, looking me straight in the face, “the Wittenberg
friar has bewitched you. You would stay for his sake.”
Instantly I felt the cords of my tongue loosed.
“Yes,” I answered. “I would stay for his sake. He is not a friar, he
is a man. He is protesting against foul hypocrisy and iniquity. I do
not follow all his theology, but I know _he_ for one believes all
he preaches, and he is no ignorant, unlearned bawler either. He has
hatched the egg, which great Master Erasmus laid years since,--the
egg wherein is contained the exposure and ending of all this merry
indulgence selling, and cant, and filching that men have called
religion. For religion I care little; for theology I care less: but
for an honest man fighting a brave fight I care much. And such a man
is Martin Luther.”
I had spit out my words in a counter passion of fury, which Marianna
cooled by a long, musical laugh that left me silent and flushed.
“O greater miracle! The Conte di Palaestro turning from his course
to aid--an honest friar. Staying in Germany to aid--an honest friar.
Yes, running even into the pains of heresy for his sake. What will
your friends say? What will the Corso say? What will they say at
Messere Chigi’s and Cardinal di Rocca’s parties? Give me wings--wings
to flit back to Rome with the wondrous tidings. The tale is too good
to keep!”
The laugh; her gesture more potent than the laugh; her words; the
picture conjured up in my mind of my boon companions roaring at her
recital,--all were like ice to freeze up my zeal and courage. Why,
ah! why had I not been given an hour of calm reflection alone. But
Marianna was there, alert, persistent, aggressive. She gave me no
quarter.
“Come, now, Gualtiero. You say you will stand by this silly friar?
Good, then, what will you do?”
“Plead for him, argue his cause with such German princes as I can
visit.”
“And what can _they_ do?”
“Why, much. At their request His Holiness will go slowly.”
“Slowly? perhaps. But Rome is always most terrible when she moves
slowly. Do you think your Luther will retract his errors?”
“Sooner will the stars fall. I have taken measure of the man.”
“Then, Gualtiero, speak sensibly. No princes can save him. They could
not if they would. Many of your loutish Germans wish him well. Very
likely. They have no armies, however. See in your mind his end.”
“You mean?--”
“A great company, perhaps at Rome in the Piazza di San Pietro,--for
there he will be sent,--a great pile of faggots, a mighty blaze,
a procession of Swiss guardsmen and the holy Inquisitors, your
Wittenberg friar clothed in a yellow robe and pinioned in the
midst--and then--”
“It cannot be. You are imagining.”
“This Augustinian is not the first to rail against what are called
‘the misdeeds of the Vatican.’ Others are before him: yes, and they
did not lack brave friends. Recall them. What befell Arnold of
Brescia?”
“Burned.”
“And Wyclif of England?”
“His bones cast into the river.”
“And John Hus?”
“Burned.”
“And Jerome of Prague?”
“Burned.”
“And Savonarola?”
“Burned.”
“And Martin Luther?--”
I stood dumb. Bursting into an irresistible passion she flung herself
into my arms.
“Gualtiero! Gualtiero! Break this foul spell. Cast over this mad
friar. You were not born for strife and disaster, and following a bad
cause to a worse end. You were born for the South; for poetry and
song; for all that is best from old Hellas and Rome; for blue skies
and soft beds and fair visions; for happiness--and love--and for me!”
And then she covered my face with hot kisses.
Why did I succumb? Why does any man succumb when on one side are
truth, honor, justice, salvation; and on the other expediency,
pleasure, and a beautiful beseeching woman? I was neither a Socrates
nor a Christian martyr.
I pressed her in my arms. I returned her kiss.
“I will go with you,” I said; “I will go with you to Palaestro.”
Since then I have often wondered if I did not almost commit the
unpardonable sin of grieving the Holy Spirit; for I knew the good,
and I chose the evil.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CALL FROM THE NORTH
A week at the fashionable waters of Baden, an easy trip across the
Alps through Basel, Lucerne, Lugano; then again the Italian speech,
the Italian color, the Italian sky.
Two weeks at Milan, a month in the palace of the lordly Contarini’s
at Venice, with the plashing oars of the gondola ever in my ears,
with Marianna divinely radiant ever at my side,--and the Harzland,
Ilsa, and Martin the friar, all seemed exceeding far away. With a
pleasure rekindled by a year’s absence I plunged back into the old
voluptuous life. Delightful indeed to hear again the tinkle of the
castinets, to taste the delicate Chianti and Frascati, to wake in
the morning, to fall asleep in the evening, with the renewed vow,
“to-day, to-morrow, forever, let black care hide his face. My life is
to enjoy.”
Yet even in Venice I heard rumors of the insolent disturber at
Wittenberg. I heard his case discussed during a charming supper at
the Doge’s palace. Everybody agreed he was a bold, sincere man,
probably of considerable piety and attacking undoubted evils.
“But,” spoke the sagacious Senator Morosini, stroking his long gray
beard, as he wound up the conversation, “what will you? On the Rialto
they tell me his propaganda has already cost the Vatican four hundred
thousand ducats. He must be silenced speedily,--if necessary by
stake and faggots. However, if His Holiness is wise, he will recall
the very disagreeable commotions following the execution of Hus
the Bohemian heretic. The safest way to silence this fellow is by a
bishopric.”
“There is no gag like a mitre,” nodded the Spanish Ducca de Obispo.
“I hear Rome is likely to use it.”
As for me, I sat wisely in silence, by no means confident the proffer
of a bishopric would prove so efficacious as these two experienced
and noble gentlemen imagined.
The glittering revels and water parties, however, the excursions to
Chiogia, the fêtes on the Grand Canal, the masques on the Piazza di
San Marco,--all these at length palled upon Marianna and upon me. We
were away to our own little kingdom--Palaestro.
What was Palaestro? The antithesis of the Regenstein, a pocket
among the green Apennines, a clump of gray moss-clustered towers,
and overhead the southern sky. Before the towers nestled the little
village, tall balconied houses of dirty pink stucco, and dignified
beggars dozing in the shade, waking only to whine their “caritas!”
for a soldo. At night far down the valley pealed the silver call of
the bell of the little brown church. By day the sun sprinkled his
brightness over the fragrant orchards, lusty chestnut groves, and
twisted oaks. Behind the old gray towers rose the newer palazzo of
the lords of Palaestro,--a vast mansion, stately with Romanesque
windows, Corinthian columns, and foliate sculpture. Pupils of
Donatello had carved the marbles; Signor Andrea del Sarto had painted
a _Pieta_ which looked down upon the great state gallery. Venetian
glass, Syrian carpets, cases of antique medallions, vast quantities
of silver plate,--these were a few of the things a stranger would
have noted instantly. Our spacious halls and sunny logias looked
abroad upon the old Etruscan country, and in them we could walk
interminably, and take our ease. If one would turn Epicurean,
Palaestro was indeed a retreat for philosophers!
Thither we came by way of Ferrara, after enjoying hospitality at the
court of its prince. His Eminence of Forli travelled in vast state in
a carriage entirely white, with silver used in place of iron down to
the smallest rail and a harness of silver likewise. I wished my own
equipage to correspond, and I fear I made many drafts on my Venetian
bankers in those days,--both for myself and for Madonna, who seemed
daily more beautiful as she neared her native Southland.
“Here is a fair binding for a rose,” I remember crying, as I flung
around her neck a chain of Indian pearls straight from a Portuguese
out of Calicut; and she took them with a gracious condescension, as
if all I gave to her was but her due.
The deft servants my kinsmen had sent from Florence soon put the
palace in excellent order, and we made haste to summon certain
old boon companions from Rome. Signor Campelli the distinguished
Hellenist came, a bishop or two famous for wit, Latinity, and
judgment of good cookery, an artist aiding Raffaello, and our
particular friend Cardinal Rocca, as well as sundry ladies of whose
charms I will not particularize. Our heads were full of Boccaccio’s
_Decamerone_, and surely never was there a better place to imitate
the luxurious revels of Pampinea, Pamfilo, and their peers. My _major
domus_ was an adept in organizing entertainments. Every day we had
new dishes, new excursions, new fêtes.
We organized classical revels after the manner of Theocritus, and far
up among the rocks above the palazzo we found the ruins of an ancient
temple, three shivered columns, and a great rock whereon a millennium
and more ago they had burned the sacrifice. Here one day we imitated
the rites of Pan, slaying a young kid, crowning ourselves with fern
and fennel, and shouting a mad “Evoë!” as we danced like Grecian
mænads.
“In truth, our worship was more interesting,” said one of the ladies,
as with blithe steps we descended the mountain, “than what the Church
teaches to-day. Not that I am a heretic,” she crossed herself--“but
you understand--”
“Assuredly, noble Signora,” spoke Signor Campelli, “only you must not
dream that the true Hellenist is hostile to the Church. Ours is the
truest piety. Has not our incomparable Marsilio Ficino established
that Zoroaster, Socrates, and Vergil are but prophets to prove
the divinity of Christ? Believe me, our cult to-day was as truly
religious as a Christian mass, only its significance is of course hid
from the unlearned.”
“Pope Pius II made a true remark,” added Rocca at my elbow. “He said,
‘Even if Christianity were not confirmed by miracles, still it ought
to be accepted on account of its morality.’ The Church naturally
shows one face to the multitude, another to the wise and initiated.”
* * * * *
Unbridled indeed had been my joy that day; and yet in the evening,
as I stood in my chamber, overlooking the starlit valley, the great
mansion still, the guests all retired, I experienced one of the most
marked revulsions of feeling it has ever been my fate to know.
I saw again as in a dream--yet never was I more awake--the little
room in the Augustinean convent at Wittenberg, the green tile
stove, the books and papers on the table, and beside me was the
deep-voiced friar with his wonderful eyes, speaking to me of duty
and righteousness, making the chamber ring with the grave melody of
the Psalter, using arguments no pagan could refute, and speaking as
though dweller in a world no pagan could enter. And I almost heard
again his word as I went forth from the humble doorway: “My heart
is moved for you. Oh! seek humbly for a new and better mind; be not
Italian, but German; for whether Martin Luther lives or dies, the
Fatherland will have need for all brave young nobles such as you.”
And I had answered his appeal--by going to Palaestro.
I had laughed a dozen times with Marianna over the absurd appeal of
his theology. I had made merry with her over the unsophisticated
piety of Ilsa. I had vowed I had seen enough of the cold bleak
Northland, with its drunken ritters and its swinish peasants. But
had I, in actual truth? To what end was I idling away the days
at Palaestro? I was surely growing no richer, nor extending my
landed possessions, nor advancing my interest at the royal courts,
nor gaining reputation in arms, nor even winning fame as poet
and scholar. Was I prepared to choose as my adopted city neither
Athens nor Imperial Rome, but Sybaris? When would all these days of
unceasing pleasure end? Was there no better name for me to leave
to the after world than that of a delightful host, a talented
improviser, a clever talker, an elegant dresser, and a potent
drinker? Assuming even that the Christian theology was a snare or
a fantasm, was I justified as a confessed pagan in this inglorious
life? As I turned away from my window I saw on my marble writing desk
the vellum-bound volumes of Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius,
newly come from the presses of Venice and Basel. In a kind of frenzy
I searched them, striving to find some convenient maxim to beat back
the train of my questionings. I could not have sought worse helpers.
Everywhere was incentive to despise creature delights; to seek the
hard tasks of duty--otherwise life was rottenness and failure. I
flung down the books in disgust. I had read them often before, and
had been merely charmed by their pure Greek or Latinity. Why did
they seem but as harsh reprovers now? I leaped up from the table and
clinched my hands.
“_Pestilenza!_” I swore in Italian; “it is that cursed friar of
Wittenberg that has done this! He may make his own bonfire and roast
in it, for all me. Can I have no peace for my thoughts?”
I cast myself upon my bed. Sleep came, but this time with vivid
dreams of the Regenstein, and the rolling Harzland. I saw Ilsa
galloping before me, as we chased a flying roe. I saw her yellow hair
blowing out in the wind; I heard her clicking to her great tall horse
“faster! faster!” Down on a fallen log we swept; I saw her beast
stumble, I put out my hand to grasp her bridle--missed it. My heart
surged with horror as she plunged headlong--then to my vast relief, I
awoke.
No sleep returned to me that night. I rose in the morning unrested
and out of humor. Marianna scolded me for sitting too long with my
books. Was not Signor Campelli learned enough for all of us? We had
a magnificently conceived fête that day; a “Court of Love” after the
Provençal troubadour fashion; Madonna Marianna sitting in a rose
bower, while all we gentlemen came before our goddess, and chanted
verses in her honor, each striving to outdo the other in elaborate
compliment; and then laid before her carefully wrought questions
touching matters of the “gay science” of Messere Cupido. Her own wit
was exquisite, but afterward she scolded me for my banal remarks and
verses.
“You were even more stupid than the bishop,” she said at the end of
her reproof.
I promised amends, but in truth my mind was growing ill at ease. The
festival of Pan had been the climax to my days of pleasure. After
that, the reaction--often resisted--never abated. Strangely enough,
now that I was released from all need of speaking it, my thoughts
frequently came to me in German. I once so far forgot myself as to
assert I preferred beer to Chianti, and when a valet was very slow
and clumsy I whipped out “Donnerwetter!”--an awful oath, that made
the poor fool turn pale as a sheet. If one had asked me what was
wrong, I would have answered frankly, “I do not know. All seems well
with me.” Yet I was ever moody, irritable, and frequently, I fear, an
ungracious host.
“Ah! carissime,” Marianna said one evening, as we stood together on
the logia, her hand on my shoulder; “are we not happy? Very happy?
Are not our days drifting on like a little brown boat on the blue
waves of a bay, straight in the face of the sunshine?”
“Very happy, Madonetta, but I do not like your simile to the
sunshine.”
“Wherefore, Gualtiero?”
“The sun will set, and take the light with him.”
“Our sun will never set.”
“If we only could be sure, Marianna mia!”
“Silence,” she commanded. “Have you not everything a man could wish?
For us there is no sunset, only an ever brightening glow and glory.”
“I will not argue against the wisdom of Signora Minerva and the grace
of Donna Venus.”
She seemed appeased at my answer, but I was not pleased at myself.
Spasmodically and by marked effort I threw myself into the task of
enlivening my guests. For a few days the festivities at the palazzo
were more furious than ever. Once I heard Andrea remarking to a
fellow valet, “His Excellency is drinking an unusual amount of late.”
This, however, hardly troubled me. So long as I did not think about
Wittenberg and the Harzland, about Luther and Ilsa, I was tolerably
content. Then came a letter from Rome which raked up old memory. A
quondam boon companion sent a goodly parcel of court news, an account
of the wedding of the Duca di Caserna, a discussion of the latest
Latin play, and thus concluded:--
“Since you are lately out of your barbarous Germany, you of course
know all about that friar Luther. People here talk of him more and
more. ‘To the flames’ say some, but that is not easy. The Elector of
Saxony is protecting him, and they say many of his countrymen are mad
enough to call him not a heretic, but a saint. Sylvestro Priario,
His Holiness’s censor, has written a bitter and biting retort to
those much discussed theses. Some men here say it is somewhat too
harsh really to serve its end. He asks ‘if Luther has an iron snout
and a head of brass which it is impossible to shatter?’ Again he
says, ‘It is the nature of dogs to bite. I fear thou hast a dog for
thy father.’ Again--seeing that Luther has said there is no warrant
for indulgences in the Scripture--‘we have not the authority of the
Scripture for them, but we have the authority of the Roman Church and
the Popes, which is the greater of the twain.’ All this is, beyond
doubt, abrupt, and I fear Priario was ill advised in publishing it.
Still this German trouble-monger must be quieted, and perhaps the
sharpest way is the best. I understand he is about to be cited to
Rome to answer for his heresies. Then if he recants, he is stultified
with his countrymen, and his influence is gone. If he refuses, there
is assuredly only one end for him. But I plague you enough with
such trifles. Let me tell you of the Conte di Rampogli’s Genoese
inamorata. She has grown marvellously handsomer since she bleached
her hair.”
So Rome was acting at last. Of course I had been a true prophet. The
Wittenberg friar would learn what it was to curtail the perquisites
of the Vatican. But I had not the least interest in the small talk
that concluded the gossipy letter. I threw down the offending sheets,
and stamped them under foot.
“Why in the name of every saint,” I vowed, “cannot Dominati write
like a sensible man?” And again, despite all my efforts, I was a very
tiresome host that afternoon.
But letters, like misfortunes, seldom come singly, and surely I was
ready to call them all unlucky. About a week later came a letter in
German, forwarded by a courier of the Elector of Saxony bound for
Rome. It was from the Freiherr von Steinitz at Wittenberg, and I
could not complain that it was not informing. On the contrary, I read
it through thrice and carefully before tearing it into very small
bits. The Freiherr was clearly disappointed I had not kept my pledge
to return to Wittenberg. “We speak of you often and miss you much;
but of course you will be again in Germany ere many months.” Then
he went on with news. Old Graf Eckbert of Blankenburg was dead. His
last days had been drunken and blasphemous. Even his wildest “drink
brothers” had shuddered at his end. Naturally he left to Moritz only
a decrepit castle and heavy debts owing the Frankfurt Jews. Moritz
would have to cut down most of his fine forest to pay them. As for
Ilsa, she was of course left with next to nothing. Her aunt Theckla
was bringing great pressure upon her to take the veil at Quedlinburg,
as the only means to redeem her father’s soul. She would have
already consented had not her Wittenberg kinsfolk, under the advice
of Dr. Luther, strongly urged against it. “For,” said Von Steinitz
significantly, “we would rejoice to see her married to some noble
young graf or ritter who would do her honor, and we engage she shall
not come to him without a fair dowry, seeing that God has denied us
daughters of our own. However, if no such proper gentleman appears
soon at Blankenburg, we fear the abbess will have her own way.”
After this broad hint he went on to speak of Dr. Luther and the
contest raging around him. The struggle had passed far beyond any
matter of indulgences. Men were wagging their heads over questions
as to the whole of the priest’s right to power. It was hard for an
unlearned man to know what was right, but Von Steinitz would never
believe such a saintly man as Dr. Luther a heretic,--and he knew ten
thousand other German nobles felt with him. They would not let the
friar be haled to Rome to fall into the claws of his enemies. If
he must be judged, it must be before an impartial tribunal, and in
Germany. Otherwise they would teach His Holiness and the cardinals a
few plain things.
The letter concluded with expressing an earnest hope that I would
soon return to Germany, “where there is a work for all of us.”
Yes, a work! Life was real there; real deeds to do; real hopes to
strive for; real deaths if needs be to die. And lo! I was spending
the months in this palace of dreams at Palaestro. And while I tarried
Ilsa was hesitating on the threshold of the convent. Why were such
obnoxious questions and choices thrust upon me?
“Your letter was from Germany?” asked Marianna that afternoon.
“Yes, Madonna.”
“That is why you are all scowls; why your laughter and jests are
forced; why you lapse so often into silence. I have a command to give
you.”
“Deliver it.”
“You are to receive no more letters from Germany.”
“Obedience is easy. It is not likely that I will get another for many
a long day.”
“Come, then, Signor Compelli has arranged a delightful mask up by
the grotto. We are to act the fifth eclogue of Vergil. He is to be
Menalcas and we ask you to be Mopsus.”
“No doubt heaven intended me for a shepherd,” I rejoined dryly, and
did my best to please them all the afternoon.
* * * * *
Marianna’s injunction, however, was broken far sooner than
anticipated. Only a week after the coming of Von Steinitz’s letter
a barefoot friar came to the palazzo. He was on pilgrimage to Rome,
he said, and had turned aside from Perugia to deliver this. Andrea
brought the packet to me just as I had returned from a luncheon upon
the rocks. It was in vigorous, though not hyper-polished Latin, and
in a strong, firm hand. I read it like a man possessed.
“_Martin Luther, Augustinian friar, to the right noble Graf
Walter von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein, my good friend_; grace
and peace be to you through our Lord Jesus Christ.
“A blunt man God made me; if then my bluntness offends, His, not
mine, must be the blame. Dearest Graf, I do not write you now,
because I have looked for you in Wittenberg all these months and
seen you not. I write you because tales strange and grievous of
your manner of life have come from Italy even to Saxony, borne
by too many travellers for me to doubt their truth. And now in
my ears sounds the warning of God through Ezekiel the Prophet,
saying, ‘When thou speakest not to warn the wicked from his
wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I
require at thy hand.’ Therefore lest His displeasure be upon me I
am constrained to speak.
“Did I not love you, nevertheless I would strive the more to be
silent, yet now I feel even as did Paul bereft of his friend
Demas, ‘who,’ he wrote, ‘hath forsaken me, having loved this
present world.’ Again, did I not see you noble, rich, gifted with
all manner of earthly knowledge, fitted to play a notable part in
the battle betwixt Michael and his angels and the Dragon and his
angels, I would yet strive to be silent. But silent now I cannot
be, for I have yearned for you.
“What has bewitched you? Who has ensnared you and plucked you
away from the works of God to the works of the devil? Ah! the
devil is crafty and strong, and we are told can array himself as
an angel of light. Is it as an angel that he has come to you?
Has some woman of glozing tongue and unvirtuous heart spoken
unto you, and have you been beguiled? Are you in the case of
the simple wayfarer, to whom she has said, ‘Stolen waters are
sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’ Remember then the
remainder of the tale, ‘He knoweth not that the dead are there
and that her guests are in the depths of hell.’
“Therefore, I say unto you, be you warned and repent. No man
while living has sinned beyond the gracious forgiveness of
heaven. Be not as one of those who wrapped his talent in the
napkin, and must return it to his Master tarnished and without
usury. Return to Germany: to the contest to which God is
summoning all men good and true. Then on the last great day will
your soul be clear, and whether poor Martin Luther’s body lives
or is burned will matter little. The Truth is from above and will
prevail forever. I have spoken. Farewell.”
I tore the paper to small bits the instant I had read it, but even at
this far day I can repeat every word.
BOOK II
THE STRUGGLE
CHAPTER XIV
HOW I LEFT PALAESTRO
I could not bring myself to go to the great dining room and face my
guests. I felt my head on fire; my senses were no longer obedient.
I sent Andrea down to announce that I was suddenly unwell and must
ask my friends to amuse themselves for the evening without me; then
for full two hours I sat in my darkening chamber, refusing to let
the valets bring in lights, leaning upon the marble table with my
face in my hands. The letter from Wittenberg had shaken me to the
depths of my being. I knew perfectly well that I was being forced
to decide that which should determine my whole future, both in this
mortal life and in the hereafter--if hereafter there was. There was
no evading it; no postponement to seek prudent counsel. There was not
a soul in Palaestro in whose wisdom and impartiality I had the least
confidence; in fact, I did not know a single stable counsellor for
such matters in the wide world. Across the miles and leagues, plains,
Alps, and Apennines, had come a trumpet call. “No man while living
has sinned beyond the forgiveness of heaven. Return to Germany.”
The call of a peasant-born, Saxon friar, and he had dared to send
it to me,--the high-born, wealthy, sophisticated, elegant lord of
Palaestro, to whom princes extended cheerful courtesy.--And what was
I to do?
For the friar had spoken the truth. “Truth, and only truth--curses
on him!” so I groaned, while my teeth gritted. I could no more deny
the justice of his appeal than I could deny my own existence--and my
philosophic scepticism stopped at least there.
“Come, come, Walter,” I once declaimed to myself, “do not be swept
from your feet by a meddlesome friar’s chidings. What arch-fiend
has commissioned Martin Luther to be guide and conscience for you?
Not the Church--the Church is like to burn him. Not philosophy--a
thousand arguments refute him. Not your self-interest--even if you
quit Palaestro, your business is to seek preferment at some royal
court. Dissolve the spell! Cast his malign power from you!”
“Eccellenza, you are ill?” sounded Andrea’s anxious voice in my ear.
“Will you have nothing? Can I not serve you?”
“Yes, dog! Get from the room!”
Out he went in alarm. I was not accustomed to answer thus. I sank
back to my old posture, and strove with a kind of desperation to
think calmly. Then into the dark room I heard coming the rustling
of gauzy silks. A tall candle sent its haunting red light over the
cartooned tapestries, the high ceiling, the tall black furniture.
Marianna was setting the taper on the table beside me, was leaning
over my shoulder; her long white hand touched my face.
“Gualtiero.”
The touch, the word, came as with a supernatural influence. By a kind
of unaccountable shock my head cleared: my wonted faculties returned.
I sprang from the table as though her touch had been a blow.
“Gualtiero,” now her questions came fast, her voice rose a little
shrill, “what has happened? What was in that letter? I was told
you had received one. Now you say you are unwell. Whence was the
letter--from Germany?”
“Yes.” My mind was working with fearful rapidity. In a twinkling I
had decided it was best to tell the entire case without evasion. If I
must fight, I must fight.
“And from whom in Germany?”
“From Dr. Luther of Wittenberg.”
“The heretic friar! Santo Spirito, to have his vile paper in the
palace! Where is the cursed thing?”
“Behold.” I pointed with my foot at the tattered bits upon the carpet.
“Holy Mother be praised! You have treated it as it deserved. But why
do you look at me so fearfully?”
“Do I look fearful, Madonna? The only fearful thing is that Dr.
Luther has spoken the truth.”
“The truth? What has he had the madness to say?”
“That I have sinned against God and man in deserting Germany. That I
must return at once, and play my part there in the battle.”
“Good God!”
It was an instant before the full force of my remark struck her.
While words trembled on her tongue I attempted to break the blow by
an ill-conceived playfulness.
“It will have to come soon or late, Marianna, this parting of ours.
The last months have been too joyous to go on forever. Better folk
than we have been thrust asunder by the fates. Dante loved Beatrice
only from afar. Petrarch was severed from Laura. Boccaccio said his
farewell to Fiametta. I will not seek for like sorrows among the
ancient worthies. Venus and Cupido have given us more of the sweet
wine than they grant to most mortals; let us not cavil too loudly if
at last we taste the bitter lees.”
She was terribly pale now, and pressed close upon me. Her words came
with her panting breath. Her gestures would have been those of one
mad, save for her redeeming Italian grace.
“You mean--you mean that all is ended? That we are to part forever?
That you are returning to barbarous Germany? That you cast off Italy?
That you cast off me? That you forsake all--_all_, at the summons of
this heretic friar?”
“You have said it, Madonna,” I replied very gently, stepping away
from her contact.
“And since when have you reached this prudent, sage, pious, honorable
determination?” she called in rising accents of scorn.
“Since you entered the room, Madonna.” I knew the words would hurt,
but for once I was keeping back nothing.
“Am I such a fiend, then?” Her words were almost a wail. In the red
half light she had never looked more beautiful.
“Hear me, Marianna,” I threw back, still moving away from her, “this
may be the last time we shall speak face to face on the old terms.
Therefore hear the cold truth. Who am I--German, Italian? For believe
me no man can be truly the son of more than one country. If Italian,
I am yet too German to make a worthy one. You know the saying,
‘Tedesco Italianato è un diavolo incarnato.’ What have I to give to
Italy, to win even dim glory for the Palaestro name? Arms? I was
never shaped for a great general or even a tolerable captain. Poetry?
My sonnets show abundant talent; never genius. Elegant manners and
taste? I have too many noble ancestors, men of high words and higher
deeds, to desire to have fops say on the Corso, ‘imitate the cloaks
and cookery of the Conte di Palaestro.’ So much for Italy. But in
Germany--”
“Ay, in Germany,” she moaned.
“_There_ a work awaits one worthy at least of a
Lichtenstein-Regenstein. Old manners and beliefs change. New manners
and beliefs are born. If there is to be a battle, my fathers would
have me with the first in it. If wrongs threaten, it is mine to
strive to avert them. If wrongs are committed, mine to avenge them:
and if I fail, why, then, is not my state as glorious as that of the
old Regenstein ritters who died before the walls of Jerusalem, yet
never entered the Holy City? Not failure, but the manner of failure,
will disgrace my fathers’ house.”
“Gualtiero! are you turned mad? You know your heretic friar will be
burned.”
“No, by the pillars of heaven! First I prophesied that evil to him,
then you to me. We were wrong. He will not be burned.”
“Not burned?” her voice rose shriller than ever. “What devils will
save him?”
“I--we, the Germans.”
“You--the Germans? You link yourself finally with that accursed folk?”
I folded my arms across my breast.
“Yes, Marianna,” I replied, striving to speak calmly; “you have said
it. I _am_ a German. Martin Luther is a German. And we Germans will
not suffer our truth-telling, honor-loving friar to be banned and
burned by your un-Christian and sensual Italian Pope.”
“Gualtiero!” The word came as one long scream. She threw her arms
above her head and rushed from the room....
I paced to and fro a dozen times, then cast myself down again by the
table. I was laughing in a kind of unhealthy delirium. Hedwig’s lines
were dancing through my head again, louder, louder.
“Half of Northland,
Half of Southland,
Never gay
Till all of one land.”
“Ach! Gott,” I cried in round Saxon, “I should be very gay then--for
I am wholly German now!”
In a desperate, mad way I was feeling a great relief of spirits. The
hesitancy, the tension, was over. The battle had begun, and I had
chosen my part.
I did not know what my guests thought of my proceedings that night. I
did not care. I was going back to the Harzland, to the Regenstein, to
Ilsa, to Martin Luther. The accursed lotus eating of the past months
would cease. Life would be real; and come pain, come joy, come hell,
come heaven--they, too, would be real. I was too delighted at the
thought that I had truly chosen the man’s part, and would play it,
to endeavor to shape ways and means how I might creditably dismiss
my associates from Palaestro, and find occasion for returning to
Germany. Long, very long, I sat in the black room, till Marianna’s
candle had flickered down to its socket; then at last the door and
the arras were cautiously pushed one side. Rabbi Isaac Sarfati, the
Cardinal of Forli’s Jewish body physician drew his white beard and
long dark cloak into the room.
“The Conte is sadly indisposed;” he began, gliding about with his
long fingers; “he is excited. He will be the better for sleep. Allow
my officiousness to prevail. If he will but go to bed, and then a
draught--”
The deep booming of the tower clock announcing the hour after
midnight reënforced his suggestion. I rose hastily.
“Yes, yes,” I assented, “it is late. Let me retire.”
Andrea, who had been anxiously waiting without, entered on the first
sign, and I was assisted to bed. Rabbi Sarfati was there with his
silver cup. In a more cautious mood I would have hesitated at the
heavily spiced liquor he forced upon me, but at the moment I was
utterly unsuspicious. I felt sight and sound leaving me, and for many
hours must have been plunged in profound slumber.
* * * * *
When I awoke, I was in a small, mean room with narrow windows, and
these with view only over a distant landscape. The furniture was
dingy, the floor mere gray tiling. From the angle of the sunbeams
one could tell it was past noon. I rose with a sudden start, but was
plucked back by a hammer-like throbbing in my head. All my bones
seemed to ache together. I gave a faint groan from the mingled pain
and weakness. My call to Andrea brought at first no answer, but in a
moment I saw beside the bed the olive face of Eugenio, one of Forli’s
favorite body-servants.
“How in Satan’s name, rascal,” I began, “came I here? And how came
you here? I don’t take snakes such as you into my service. What has
happened?”
The fellow grinned most impudently before he replied. “The Conte
should be calm. He is very sick.”
“He was very well last night and will be well enough now to break a
cane over you soon.”
Again I started up. Again a sense of abject weakness and pain sent me
back upon the pillows. I could only curse under my breath.
“At least,” I ordered, “fetch hither Andrea.”
“That is not commanded,” was the reply.
“Not commanded? And who gives commands in Palaestro save myself? Was
the castle stormed last night, or am I turned mad?”
“We feared the latter,” said the sly villain gravely. “It was by
orders of his Eminence my master and Signor Sarfati that you were
brought hither. It was said in the palace, you were ill and deranged.
I am appointed to watch you.”
The whole intent of Sarfati’s solicitude for my health and the effect
of his medicine came now to me like a flash. It served to clear my
reeling senses. This, then, was Marianna’s handiwork. While I had
reflected complacently on my triumph over her, she had struck. I was
a prisoner in my own mansion. If I recovered my freedom without some
abject compromise, I was a fortunate man. In my unskilful folly I had
driven Marianna and her father to extremities, and well did I know
how they could fight.
“Well, Eugenio,” said I, regarding the fellow steadily, “I intend to
waste no breath cursing you.”
“Thanks, Eccellenza,” came his answer.
“You have doubtless been ordered to report when I have awakened.”
“I have, Eccellenza.”
“Go, then, and tell his Eminence or Madonna Marianna that I am awake,
but that if they wish to converse with me, they must first contrive
to ease this headache, which is driving me frantic.”
“I go to tell them, Eccellenza,” and out he went, leaving me to all
manner of imaginings.
In a few moments the door was opened by no less a visitor than the
Cardinale di Forli. The good prelate was smiling benignantly, and
bore in his hand a tiny glass of pure green liquid.
“Drink,” he said, advancing to the bedside; “this, more than most
liqueurs, is for your health.”
I eyed the glass shrewdly.
“After what has just befallen, Eminenza,” I hesitated, “I may well
think twice even ere drinking from the hands of the Cardinale di
Forli.”
“Nonsense,” he answered jauntily; “this is not _aqua tofana_. A
man as sensible as yourself should know that we know that all your
Italian property is willed to your Florentine kinsfolk and your
sudden demise would work more havoc with our wishes than even this
return to Germany.”
Convinced that the Cardinal for once spoke the truth, I drank off the
glass and at once experienced a beneficial effect; my head cleared
and the throbbing partially ceased. I was able to sit up in bed and
ask Forli if he would graciously state his business.
From his more than customary gesticulations, his circumlocutions,
his use of delicate innuendo rather than open threats, I was led to
perceive that he felt he had a ticklish business, and I played my own
hand more boldly. He began by recalling that he had been favored with
the early friendship of my noble kinsmen of Florence and Bologna;
that I had been after a manner under his tutelage since quitting my
studies at Padua, that he had introduced me to fashion and preferment
at Rome, “and would have carried me yet higher, but for that
dastardly bungling by Orosi.” Finally he referred delicately to “his
near relationship to that lady whom I had so worthily honored with my
affections.” All this, however, was mere preliminary to an admirably
marshalled attack--in far more subtle language than Marianna had
used--upon my determination to return to Germany.
But unfortunately for his Eminence, the arguments advanced had
already been amply deliberated upon and refuted by my own sorely
hesitant self. I had anticipated everything Forli had to say, and I
replied to it, not indeed to his satisfaction, but vastly to my own.
The result was that our dialogue did not run smoothly, and the worthy
churchman presently raised his voice to no dignified pitch, while we
exchanged parry and thrust.
“Do you believe in this swinish friar’s theology?” he shouted for the
tenth time.
“You know I have no theology. I perhaps say ‘_credo_’ blindly to what
the Church teaches, never asking whether what I speak with my lips is
written on my heart. But now comes this man of Wittenberg who speaks
not to my interest, my intellect, but to my soul.”
“Your soul? The strangest word that ever left your tongue. How can
this friar, soon to feel the full displeasure of the Church, speak to
your soul? It’s sure damnation.”
“Let us have no ‘damnation’ from such as you,” I returned. “I repeat,
for reasons I cannot fathom, this Martin Luther has stirred me to
the depths of my being. If damnation there is, it is such as he
threatens.”
“You talk like one possessed. Explain.”
“I despair of explaining.” I strove vainly to speak with composure.
“I understand myself, but not how to make all clear to you. Surely
your Eminence knows the story of the women dancers, who danced before
the cross in mockery of our Lord and His passion--how they must now
dance through all eternity on sharp points amid hell fire. I tell
you, I dread lest if I turn my back on this summons now--and go on
dancing, feasting, laughing, here in Palaestro--I will meet their
fate. I will not, I cannot invite it--”
The Cardinal shrugged his shoulders eloquently, and threw up his
hands.
“My poor Gualtiero; who would have thought it? You are about to begin
on ‘duty, honor, and conscience’ again. You are indeed very ill.”
“Not so. I am just growing better.”
“To think that a little thing like Tetzel’s incautious zeal with
indulgences could make you so deranged.”
“Not Tetzel, but Luther. Oh! You are only an Italian, you will never
understand.”
“I agree with you. Pestilenza! we will have to take you in hand
roundly. I fear much, it will be some time before you can be allowed
to go again without restraint. We cannot let you wreck your fine
career. No, _per Dei Immortales_, your friends will save you, despite
yourself. Since you are turned wholly unreasonable, you must remain
here till the order comes from Rome.”
“From Rome--”
“Naturally I sent a courier thither as soon as Marianna explained to
me your state. Your moody and nervous condition has been observed by
your guests some time. They quite understand that you are unwell. I
have written to the Holy Father for authority to keep you in easy
custody until we are satisfied this dementia is entirely passed. The
Pope will naturally designate your place of confinement, and the time
of your release will be largely of your own determination.”
I sat before him, amazed and dumb. The Cardinal held out his hands
insinuatingly.
“Come, Gualtiero. You see the trouble you have plunged us in. Give me
your word you will not return to Germany, and I will send a second
courier to undo the errand of the first.”
“No!” I said it stolidly and obstinately. Another shrug and Forli was
gone, throwing over his shoulder a promise to come and argue again
the next morning.
After a few moments Eugenio entered with a tray and a simple
luncheon, whereof I partook, reflecting that if my captors wished
to murder me they would find a thousand ways to accomplish it even
if I grew lean with starvation. I soon discovered the method of my
confinement. I was in one of the small extra rooms upon the northern
wing of the palazzo, set off for the retainers of some distinguished
guest. Three of the Cardinal’s stoutest serving-men were keeping
watch outside the door. It was only twenty feet from the window
to the ground, which sloped away into luxuriant vineyards; but a
stout iron bar closed the narrow aperture, and I was without the
least weapon or tool to force it. My behavior for recent days, and
especially during the hours following the receipt of Luther’s letter,
gave every color to the report among my guests that I was deranged,
even to the need of restraint. Although the palazzo and its servants
were nominally my own, I could count on almost no personal love
and loyalty at Palaestro. The mansion had been practically deserted
save for a few caretakers, until on my arrival a horde of mercenary
attendants had been recruited from Florence. With bitterness I
contrasted the attitude of my Regensteiners, who would have plucked
down their schloss, rock from rock, rather than let their liege lord
be imprisoned within it.
There was evidently no intention of making my custody unduly severe.
Eugenio brought in an armful of my favorite books and writing
materials, also candles when it began to darken, but I was in no
mood even for Tully and Pico Della Mirandola. Painful as had been my
process of resolving to return to Germany, I did not in the least
regret my determination. I knew that it would take a good four days
before any order could come from Rome for my legal detention; in the
meantime it remained to be proved whether a Conte di Palaestro could
be incarcerated in his own palace by one of his own guests.
“And as for you,” I muttered, “oh! Eminenza of Forli, and you,
dark-eyed Madonna Marianna, I owe you both fair gratitude for this
right noble proof of how unselfishly you love me!”
Eugenio and his companions were discreetly partaking of their
macaroni and sour wine in the passage outside the door, whilst I
was pretending to bend over my Latin; but in reality was devoting
my mind not to the _Cluentius_, but to the more pressing problem
of escape, when I was stirred by a sound at the lattice. A human
form was hanging across the darkening sky at the window. I started
instinctively, but a warning “hist!” held me in my chair.
“Do not stir, Eccellenza,” came in a clear whisper which I recognized
as Andrea. His little peaked goatee and his bright beady eyes were
thrust between the cross-bar.
“Whence are you fallen?” I spoke softly, but in astonishment; “the
clouds?”
“Only the roof, Eccellenza. It is vastly easy to reach a trap-door to
the tiling, to climb along the ridgepole, then swing downwards on a
rope duly knotted around a pinnacle and with a good loop for my feet.
‘The Conte is stark mad,’ they told me; ‘he is raging and attempted
the Cardinal’s life when his Eminence approached him.’ ‘_Si! Si!_’
said I, for it seldom pays to quarrel over an unlikely story; but as
for myself, I have too many hairs in my chin to accept such a tale
unsalted. ‘Either,’ said I to myself, ‘the Conte is indeed mad, in
which case the mere sight of his sad state will be sorrowful but not
deadly, or he is not mad--in which case he may need Andrea’s wits to
help him out of the spider’s silk of Madonna Marianna.’”
“You reason like a philosopher. Only tell me,--do you think I am
dangerous or sane?”
“The Eccellenza had a sharp tongue and a short temper the other
night, but he seems marvellously himself just now. Only will he
graciously answer a question?”
“Servants should not ask questions, but I am in no place to command
you. Say on.”
“Eccellenza, is it true you have resolved to return to Germany and
the Regenstein?”
“Cat! You have been overhearing the Cardinal and the Signorina.”
“It ill becomes me to contradict the Conte. But may I crave an answer
nevertheless?”
“Then, sirrah, I go back to Germany as soon as I escape from this
strange prison.”
“I am very sorry the Conte is so resolved. Is he quite sure no power
can move him?”
“I did not ask you to applaud. I know you love the Germans as much as
a monk does the Soldan. Now I have said this I imagine you will be
prompt enough to leave me.”
“Wrong, Eccellenza;” said Andrea soberly; “an honest servant does not
leave a master just because the master resolves upon what is unwise.
I can lie to you, steal from you, disobey your small orders, do a
thousand other things to make you curse and flog me, but forsake you
in trouble--alas! what have I done to make the Conte think of me so
ill?”
“You are the most honest rascal that ever escaped the gallows,” spoke
I, with an imprudent laugh.
“Softer, Eccellenza,” entreated Andrea. “They think I am down at the
village for a frolic. What we have to do were best done to-night. Is
the Conte again hale and well?”
“Never sounder. Rabbi Sarfati’s cordial has spent itself,--the
circumcised villain!”
I need not detail all that he then suggested. The invaluable fellow
had already fathomed my entire predicament, and had a plan of
escape devised. It was useless to strive to remain in Palaestro in
the face of the authority Forli was attempting to exercise in the
Pope’s name, but escape from my present imprisonment did not promise
vast difficulties, though it irked my pride to seem to flee like
an outlaw from my own paternal stronghold. Promising to be back
before midnight Andrea swung his feet into the loops of his rope and
vanished overhead, leaving me to possess my soul in what patience was
permitted it.
From the state apartments of the palazzo came the sounds of music and
merriment. The tidings of my derangement clearly had not blighted the
spirits of the guests. They were, I imagined, arranging a _Moresche_,
a ballet then much in vogue, the men of the company blackened like
Moors and winding in giddy Oriental mazes, flourishing lighted
tapers. I could hear the harps, flutes, and viols; some one was
declaiming amorous sonnets, glasses were tinkling, the dance was
swaying at its height. I could imagine the beauty of the women, the
beauty of Marianna. One consenting word from me would put me back as
centre and master of all that throng. Yet sooner might wild horses
have torn me limb from limb than that I should say it. Many were my
vices, but fickle mindedness, I dare to boast, was not among them. I
had chosen. “I am facing toward the north,” I whispered to myself,
whilst with impatience I awaited Andrea.
* * * * *
My worthy valet, councillor, and, I sometimes feared, governor, was
evidently bent on proving that he could execute a masterpiece. “I had
only sheep and asses from Rome to dispose of,” he explained to me
afterward. “What chance had they against a Tuscan, against Andrea?
Did I not suck my first milk at Siena? Their master, _il cardinale_,
may know much about trussing capons so as to retain their juice, but
as for circumventing an adversary by an act of real _virtù_--bah!”
The first I knew of Signor Andrea’s craftmanship was when Eugenio,
after satisfying himself first that the grating at the window seemed
strong, and second, that I lacked nothing of the ordinary creature
comforts, barred and locked my door carefully from the outside,
then retired with his two mates a considerable distance down the
passageway. The songs and laughter from them soon told how Giovanna
and Benedetta, well-known ladies of the servants’ hall, were with
them, and I suspected they were not without wherewithal to drink.
The loud crashing of music from the state chambers was all in our
favor. I caught next the rattle of a rope against the outer wall, and
Andrea was swinging on his loops again across the window. Once a good
chisel had been passed to me inside, and what with Andrea working
without, it did not take two active men long to force the base of the
bar, especially as the iron had not been let very deeply into the
stone, and with the lower end once free I twisted the whole clear in
a twinkling. I piled the chair and table against the door, for what
proved a needless precaution, and Andrea held out his hand to me.
“All is ready, Eccellenza,” he whispered.
“For Germany, then,” I answered.
The opening was narrow, but my slight figure writhed through without
too much difficulty. The black wall yawned below me; above I could
only see the blinking stars, but it was no moment for squeamish
stomachs or hesitancy. Andrea had clambered up before me. I closed
my eyes and felt for the loops. There was a nervously long interval
of clutching and swinging ere my hands closed over the tiles of the
roof, but they were quickly gained, and a lantern dimly burning
at an opening showed us whither to clamber with what speed, yet
silence, we might. A sliding door, then a ladder, a small room where
Andrea quickly cast over me the cloak and biretta of a seedy genteel
townsman of Tuscany, and again I was following him. He himself had
adopted a similar guise. Knowing the labyrinthian corridors and
galleries of the palazzo far better than I, he had no difficulty in
conducting me through the vast building without encountering a soul.
Once I paused for an instant at a balcony overlooking the great hall.
The candles were burning low, but the musicians were still sustaining
the throb of the dance. Around and around in graceful mazes went
Marianna, pirouetting before the admiring Campelli. Upon a time I
would have been close to murder on seeing another showing her favors,
but I was past all such moving now.
“Will it be he, who will console her?” I asked of myself with curling
lip, “or the Spaniard Don Velasco, or the Milanese Conte di Tempori?”
And then I turned to Andrea: “Lead on. We are going where things are
real.”
He knew the private sally-port. The varlet there on duty had long
since yawned and gone off to play cards with his mates. The stable
grooms were sampling the liquor at the village trattoría; and saddled
and bridled stood my four best horses; “two to ride and two to lead
and relay, and I have thrown the bits and buckles for all the others
down the well,” chuckled my admirable mentor, tightening the girths;
“there will be enough cursing to cancel a great indulgence before
they can harness for any pursuit.”
“And my jewels and papers?” I asked.
“So far as portable they are in the saddle bags, Eccellenza. The
Cardinal just lacked the courage to seize them. And now if the Conte
will deign to mount.”
“Bravo!” I cried, almost aloud, “I will no longer name you Andrea,
but Ulysses.”
“The Conte will graciously keep his voice lower until we are well
clear of the palazzo. Then he can venture upon such gracious
compliments as he may desire.”
Thus admonished, I suffered Andrea to lead our two horses well down
the stony slope and by a road behind the straggling village. It was
about midnight. No shout of alarm was rising from the mass of the
palace looming now above us. The lights at the windows were growing
fewer. I could still catch the dim vibration of the music, presumably
for the last dance. It would be dawn, and an hour or more past it
before Eugenio would think of venturing to inquire of his high-born
captive “if he had slept well”; an hour more or longer before Forli
could organize an effective pursuit. All the dice had fallen in our
favor.
“Andrea,” I said, “give me your hand. You have not been my servant,
but my friend. Ask what you will of me.”
The fellow pressed my own hand to his lips.
“Eccellenza, you are going to Germany?”
“Certainly.”
“And you are very likely to remain there always?”
“Very likely.”
“Well, then, Eccellenza, promise that however much you may learn to
love that dreadful North, however much you may desire to have those
swinish Saxon louts around you, I may be ever your first valet.”
I thrust my hand into his, and squeezed hard.
“Andrea,” I said, and my throat choked a little, “you shall go with
me, though I sail to the Western Isles like another Ammiraglio
Colombo.”
I was winking fast while he climbed up into his saddle.
“I thank the Conte,” he observed quietly. “And now, Eccellenza, let
us ride.”
The touch of the night air had kindled my spirits. They rose too
at the thought that I was leaving Palaestro and its garden of evil
delights. The good horse under me responded to my spur. I felt
the wind rush past my hot cheek, I saw the stars ahead of me, and
clearest of all the North Star; and the road led straight towards
it. Swift as light we seemed to fly. Come weal, or woe, come victory
or disaster, I knew that a great milestone in my life had been past.
Other things might fail me. I had not utterly failed myself.
* * * * *
I travelled northward as rapidly as possible, calling myself the
Signor Cervoni (a name in my mother’s family), and easily passing
for a nobleman of decayed circumstances who was journeying without
state. Once outside the Papal Territories I had nothing to fear as to
pursuit, but I had no desire to loiter at any of the princely courts
in northern Italy. From Modena I despatched a letter to my cousin in
Florence acquainting him with my return to Germany, and directing him
to make such representations at Rome as would halt any proceedings by
Forli on the ground of my insanity; also to send a competent agent to
secure my rights and property at Palaestro. I likewise sent a letter
to Marianna, in which I informed her that after the desperate means
used by her father and herself to thwart my decision I must consider
our relations forever at an end. In concluding the epistle I added
that I intended shortly to marry a German Gräfin.
I need scarce remark that I here referred to Ilsa. I was not sure
how far I was deeply in love with that lady, but certainly I had
vast esteem for her and it would be highly regrettable to have her
enter the convent. If I was to live in Germany, of course I needed a
German bride; and with the dowry which I knew now Von Steinitz could
furnish, the match had at length become eminently suitable. I was
sure of Moritz’s consent; and that Ilsa herself would think twice
ere becoming the Lady of Regenstein, I had not the least idea in the
world.
CHAPTER XV
WHAT I FOUND IN THE NORTH
Martin Luther! A name all but unknown one year before, and now on
every German tongue. It was just twelve months after the posting of
the theses, on the last day of October, 1518, in the Silver Star inn,
under the shadow of the gray minster of Ulm (where I was halting
during my travel) that I heard an Augsburg silk merchant tell to
a crowded wine room what had befallen in his city: and I give the
story much as I heard it, only omitting part of the many interrupting
comments,--comments always on the valiant Augustinian’s side.
“As you see, good folk, the Elector of Saxony protested against
having a professor of his university cited to Rome on the charges of
so mangy a dog as Tetzel. So at last the Pope consented to let the
case be heard at Augsburg before His Holiness’s legate, the Cardinal
Caïetanus, who is a Dominican, but who has a name for a learned and
withal an honest man.”
“Honest for a priest, you mean,” thrust in a leer-eyed carter.
“We’ll not dispute you, sir. But let me tell my story. When the news
came to Wittenberg they say that Dr. Luther told his friends he stood
a fair chance of never returning, but went off boldly, saying that
‘Jesus Christ lives even in Augsburg,’ and ‘Let Christ live, and let
Martin die.’ He got to the city about three weeks ago and lodged at
the Carmelite Convent. You may be sure there was nudging and elbowing
enough on the streets while he passed along.”
“Is he a tall, grand man?” demanded an attentive young ritter.
“Neither very tall, nor very grand; just a friar habited like a
thousand others, only when you saw his eyes, ach! they seemed looking
down into the bottom of your soul. Well--I heard he was advised by
the Elector of Saxony’s councillors to ask for a safe-conduct from
the Emperor before going before the legate, and I think it well he
did so.”
“Well, indeed!” bellowed many voices.
“While he was awaiting the document from Kaiser Maximilian a slimy
Italian called Serralonga came to him and told him all would go
happily if he would only pronounce six letters, ‘_Revoco_’--‘I
recant.’ And when Dr. Luther hesitated, the rogue asked him if he
expected the Elector would go to war in his behalf against the Pope.
‘God forbid,’ says Dr. Luther. ‘And where will you find refuge then?’
demands the rascal. ‘Under heaven,’ answers Dr. Luther, and packs
the fellow off upon his business. Then the safe-conduct came, and
Dr. Luther went to the legate. They say there were a lot of Italian
black-gowns present, anxious to see this Saxon who had set the world
by the ears, and that Dr. Luther behaved very dutifully, falling on
his knees before the Cardinal, speaking him very fair, and asking to
be better instructed if he was in error.”
“Hard knocks are the only words for those Italians!” growled out the
ritter.
“A pity you were not by to advise Dr. Martin,” commented the merchant
dryly; “you will admit he stood to his point stoutly enough. The
Cardinal began by some mollifying words, for it would be a plume in
his hat to report at Rome ‘the strife is healed.’ Then he pointed out
one or two of the theses which seemed to him to hit the Pope’s power
hardest. Dr. Luther asked his reasons; the Cardinal cited a Papal
Bull to sustain his point; Dr. Luther knocked out his Eminence’s
breath by saying the Bull was not valid, being contrary to divers
parts of the Scriptures.”
“Ay!” cried a long-haired itinerant scholar, “there was a logical
figure not to be solved by your ‘_Barbara, Celarent, Darii_’ and the
rest.”
“You learned gentlemen will keep your formulas of logic for the
schools,” commanded the narrator. “We are less fortunate and only
understand plain German. As I said, the two thrust back and forth
for a long time, Caïetanus crying ‘recant,’ and Luther retorting he
meant no undutifulness, but he must be shown that what he was to
recant was against the teachings of Scripture. At last the Cardinal
lost temper and told him, ‘Recant to-day, or will-you, nill-you, just
for this one point, I’ll condemn all your theses.’ So off goes Dr.
Luther to take counsel with his friends, and on the next day and the
next tries to get the Cardinal to reason fairly with him; but it is
all Papal Bulls and Decretals and Thomas Aquinas on one side, and
Holy Scripture on the other. And at last the Cardinal just said over
and over, like a jackdaw, ‘Recant, recant, recant,’--not because Dr.
Luther was proved wrong, but because Rome had spoken. And at last the
Cardinal called out, ‘Recant or never come again before my eyes.’ And
forth Dr. Luther goes.”
“Honest man!” chorused twenty.
“He stayed in Augsburg a few days more, and then filed a protest
against the decision of a ‘Pope ill-informed, to a Pope better
informed.’ And finally, feeling that despite safe conducts strange
things sometimes happened when a Papal legate was close, he
left Augsburg very suddenly, and is now, I trust, safe back in
Wittenberg--God bless him!”
“God bless him!” rang from ritter and tapster; and a tall, lean
lanz-knecht captain with a scarred face, a great flail of a sword,
and a wonderful party-colored dress, one hose red, the other green,
leaped upon the table, flourishing a mighty beaker.
“Hear you, gentlemen, burghers, and good folk all, you know we
soldiers always drink damnation to the Turk. But where dwells the
Turk now? At Constantinople?”
“No! No!” stormed everybody.
“_The Turk is at Rome, his name is Leo!_ Now drink with me a new
oath, or walk up my sword’s length if you won’t. ‘Life and fortune to
the friar of Wittenberg, and damnato the Pope!’”
“Damnation to the Pope!” I suppose I drank it with the rest.
Certainly the valorous captain had no need to execute his threat on
any one. A scene of fierce drinking, oath-taking, and interchange of
pledges followed. A good many perfect strangers drank “bruderschaft”
then and there. If it had been desired, fifty good fighting men could
have been enlisted around that tavern to defend Dr. Luther. The next
day at Nördlingen I ran into a scene almost similar. And I repeated
to myself what I had said to Marianna. “We Germans will not suffer
our friar to be banned and burned by your Italian Pope.” Great was
Luther, but I think in nothing greater than this, that by simply
doing the duty that came to hand, and being true to himself and the
light which led him,--he, the peasant’s son, became the hero alike of
the mighty and the lowly among the German people.
Travelling in Germany, I dropped my Italian incognito, but took
another, Von Sparndorf (a name in my father’s family), and as a petty
nobleman with only one servant, I found not a little amusement and
pleasure in mingling with the commonalty upon the road, and even
sharing their discomforts. We had again our nights in unspeakable
inns. Once I was beset by a band of sturdy beggars who called
themselves pilgrims to St. James of Compostella, but who became
almost threatening when I refused to cast them an alms. I met also
a company of young children marching with a great cross and banner
and headed for St. Michael’s in Normandy. They had left their home
near Breslau despite their parents’ tears “because voices sent by the
dear Lord Christ compelled them to start, and surely He was guiding
them.” They were sleeping in haystacks and living on charity: but
how they fared after the winter set in, I do not dare to say. Once I
was halted by a band of mounted ritters who courteously let me pass
when they saw I was a poor gentleman, but said they were watching the
roads for some Nürnberg merchant’s wagons. As I rode on I heard their
leader whistling:--
“To ride and to rob is no shame,
The best in the land do the same.”
And later I learned they were part of the famous plunderers under
Götz von Berlichingen.
Again I came upon small hordes of wandering scholars led by tall
ne’er-do-well _Bacchanten_, drifting from Latin school to Latin
School. Each “Bacchant” was maintained by the begging and thieving
of a number of sorely tyrannized young _Schützen_, to whom he was
supposed to act as guide, protector, tutor and adviser; but whom too
often he led into nothing but every manner of idleness and vice.
Everywhere I heard of Dr. Luther, and almost everywhere with praise.
If a few monks had hostile feelings, they were wise to keep their
mutterings to the cloisters. And I heard a deal too about the
declining health of old Kaiser Maximilian, whose life was ebbing away
in Austria. “And then,” wagged many tongues “we shall see whether the
prince electors will give us Prince Charles of the Low Countries or
King Francis of France to rule over us.” A question, which, as I soon
gathered, involved many things of vast import, and among others the
final fate of Dr. Luther. “For it’s the new Emperor who will have to
settle his case with the Pope.”
Thus at last, just before winter blocked the roads, I came to the
Harzland, and reëntered the Regenstein.
* * * * *
The white mantle of snow was decking the Harzland when I reëntered
Schloss Regenstein. White and glittering under a cold sun lay all the
hills, slopes and valleys,--contrast indeed to verdant Palaestro. An
effusive and prolonged welcome was given me by all my good retainers
at the castle. Adolf in particular was almost beside himself with
delight, for he had been cut to the quick when I dismissed him at
Mainz.
“I knew you would come back, Countly Grace, I knew you would come
back!” the good fellow shouted in my ear fifty times. As for Andrea
he settled down instantly to his old ways, and the very evening after
our arrival I heard him cursing at matters German, and saying pretty
things to the castle wenches almost in the same breath.
I was without social equal or companion at the Regenstein, but I had
no intention of remaining idle and solitary for long. I very soon got
out of Adolf the condition of my neighbors at Blankenburg.
“Yes, the old Graf died hugging a crucifix, yet roaring oaths to the
very last. He has alienated about everything he could to the nuns at
Quedlinburg. I suppose he thought they would find some rat-hole for
him whereby he could escape the Master Devil. Poor young Graf Moritz
will have to live very quiet, with only a few greasy varlets and not
at all in the state worthy of his line.”
“And his sister?”
“Oh! she is to enter the convent. Her father commanded it, betwixt
his groans, and Abbess Theckla has been urging it on for a long
day. I hear Graf Moritz has been trying to dissuade her, but unless
a gallant ritter seeks her hand soon” (the rascal looked at me
shrewdly), “he won’t succeed. No vows yet have been taken, but after
all there has always got to be a bridal for a gentle lady--whether
the bridegroom be a gay nobleman or only the Church.”
“Her aunt is very importunate, then?”
“Yes. My Freude, who married the Blankenburg seneschal, says that
the poor young lady is constantly filled with strange tales:--how
nuns are often favored, as Saint Katherine was, who had Christ for
a lover, how she and Our Lord used to walk up and down the room
together, repeating their sacred ‘hours.’”
This being the case, I congratulated myself on having returned to the
North in the very nick of time. I had not the least intention of a
ceremonious wooing. It was enough that Ilsa would make a high-minded
and worthy consort, whatever be my life and projects. The exact
nature of my sentiments towards her, I was at no pains to analyze.
I had in mind a precept of Seneca’s, urging passion for a mere
sweetheart, but deliberate and well-tempered affection for a wife. I
therefore with very little delay arranged to have Moritz visit me at
the Regenstein, and our interview was in every sense satisfactory.
“Verily, Walter,” he swore as our talk ended, “there is no man in
broad Germany I would rather call ‘brother’ than you; and you know
our Wittenberg kinsfolk will not be stingy with the gulden. You may
consider the thing settled.”
“I have still to have your sister’s actual consent.”
“Oh! of course we must go through the form of consulting her. Ilsa is
not a fool. Aunt Theckla has filled her with fine stuff about ‘saints
and angels’ at the convent, but that will vanish in thin air when the
church bell begins to ring for a bridal.”
“Well--” I suggested, “how will it be? Will you make my request for
me, and receive her answer?”
“Ilsa is a strange mouse,” was his reply. “I will open the subject to
her to-night. To-morrow afternoon you can ride over to Blankenburg
and take her decision.”
“That will be the best,” I assented, “she will always feel happier if
there has seemed to be no constraint. Till to-morrow, then.”
I confess I had no misgivings over the undertaking, not even enough
uncertainty to make it seem an exciting venture; still I honored the
occasion by going to Blankenburg with considerable state. I wore a
suit of silver inlaid armor I had bought in Milan, and took twenty
men all in their best harness. Andrea carried on a cushion a gift
I felt well worthy of the future Lady of Regenstein, a chaplet of
pearls set on heavy gold, and crusted with six rubies. It was just
cold enough so that the snow did not melt. The horses were in fine
fettle. The banners whipped from our lances. The two trumpeters wound
merry blasts. I had not announced the purpose of my embassy, but I
suspect all the Regenstein knew my errand. The windows above the
portcullis were lined with women’s heads as I rode down the steep.
Over the sparkling white country we flew at a brisk gallop, and in
half an hour were winding our way up the rival slopes of the friendly
Schloss Blankenburg. There were more trumpetings and salutings,
Moritz receiving me with as much ceremony as his depleted state would
allow. After I had dismounted, while we walked arm in arm into his
great hall, I asked him how his sister had received his embassage.
“Very quietly. She said and promised nothing, but women like to
appear unfathomable. She is waiting you in the upper gallery. I have
no doubt all will go very well.”
“And there you will leave us for a little?”
“Yes, for a little,” came back his sly laugh.
I followed him, leaving my train below. A ponderous oaken door
was flung back for us. I entered a long room, hung with sombre
tapestries. It was on the east side of the castle, and the winter sun
was already declining; consequently the chamber was growing dark.
A lady all in black came from behind the arras at the head of the
apartment.
“My sister,” said Moritz, halting. “I will withdraw.” And with that
he left me, and I moved on to meet Gräfin Ilsa alone.
We came within three paces of one another without speaking, when
by mutual impulse we halted, myself to bow, she to courtesy. I had
composed a sufficiently courtly and insinuating speech to begin our
dialogue, but my tongue halted slightly, and while I hesitated the
Gräfin began in tones of cold reserve.
“Your return to the Regenstein is most welcome, my Lord Graf. Doubly
welcome, I should say, in behalf of my brother, who cannot but
rejoice in your companionship, seeing that I am to be so utterly
sundered from him.”
“Sundered?” quoth I, regaining my tongue; “ah, hardly more than in
name. The Regenstein and Schloss Blankenburg are so close together,
and he cannot complain that he has lost a sister when he has gained a
brother.”
“I fear your Lordship has been troubling yourself with
impossibilities,” she answered, coming no nearer, while her tone was
as icy as the frozen sheen without. “You have done me vast honor, but
it is Moritz’s error if he has not told you that I am shortly to take
the veil at the Convent of Quedlinburg.”
I was for the instant confounded. I had expected possibly a few
maidenly protests--to be duly overcome; but this attitude of stony
resistance was baffling. Yet I had gone too far for any retreat.
“Lordship? Lord Graf?” I darted back, seizing the first weapon
that came to hand. “I was ‘Walter’ when we rode on the last hunt
together. Have you one name for your friend in the autumn, and
another in the winter, Ilsa?”
And now I had struck out fire.
“Ilsa? Never, never again from such as you.” And even in the twilight
I saw the menace from her eyes. “If right you had to use the name,
you have forfeited it--utterly.”
“Dear God!” I cried, feeling my own blood quicken. “I will not take
that without a reason. Is a year so short a time that an old friend
who returns as a suitor is to be flung aside like a broken riding
crop? Your cause?”
“Palaestro.” She seemed to spit it forth.
“Palaestro? and what of Palaestro?” I demanded, all my fine speeches
cast to the wind.
“What of Palaestro? When every traveller has brought back the tale of
how you and your guests have--amused yourselves. Dare you ask _that_
of me?”
“Noble Gräfin,” I declared, resolving not to lose my temper, but to
reason her out of her passion, “when you permit me I will relate to
you the manner of my leaving Palaestro; at present let me recall to
you that your brother assuredly knows all that you do of my life
there, and yet he cheerfully furthers my suit.”
“Of course” (oh! how glorious rose her indignation); “he is a man. He
thinks of your noble name, your wealth, the worldly advantage. But
I--God pity me! (her voice broke) I think of none of these things.
I think of your soul. Your soul--Walter. For I have loved you.
Therefore I am resolved to go to the convent.”
“You have loved me? Therefore you are resolved on the convent?
Thunder of heaven! now at last I believe I am turning mad.”
“Not mad. You hear only too well. Ah! if you were but a stranger
whom I did not love; then I might marry you. I would sacrifice
myself to aid my brother, and through my husband restore our old
Blankenburg name. But you!--It is wholly impossible. I must go to the
convent--for your sake.”
By a great effort I forced myself to be calm. “Ilsa,” I commanded,
“contain yourself. Give me frowns or give me favor, at least answer
me clearly. Why, if you love me, will you not marry me?”
“Walter,” she said in a shuddering whisper, “answer truly. Were you
married to that Italian--that cardinal’s daughter?”
“I was not.”
“_O weh!_ Would to God you were!”
“All men have many sweethearts,” I protested, attempting to turn the
storm.
“Not men whom I love,” she flashed terribly; “for I love men of
honor. You have fled from her to me; broken her heart, mayhap, for
she was a woman, though no doubt a woman of sin and guile. And I dare
say she also loved you. Then straight from her arms you come to seek
mine. You might have spared me that.”
“And yet,” I demanded, at white heat now, “you say you loved me. You
have not explained.”
I saw her putting back her long yellow hair that had been falling
from under the black hood all over her glowing face.
“You came to me more than a year ago like the knight who comes to
the enchanted princess back in the golden world. You came with your
Italian accent, your Italian manners, your lore and wit and charm of
the Southland. I could never think enough of you. I lay awake musing
on your elegance and nobility. You were my Tristan, my Siegfried,
whereof the minnesingers told. I would have gone to the ends of the
world with you, though I dared not confess this even to my own soul.
When you went away to Mainz, I said to my heart, even as I strove
with my father in his dreadful hours, ‘He will come back, He will
come back, and then--’”
“But I have come back.”
“Yes. And how come? Come with my palace of dreams vanished to dust
and ashes! Come to buy me from my brother, with a few pretty words
and promises of advantage, because, forsooth, you have dismissed your
Italian leman, and the Regenstein is lonely and requires a proper
mistress. But I, Ilsa von Blankenburg, say I will not go with you. I
will not be bought and sold on these terms. I thank you fairly for
your honor and courtesy, but I go with my aunt to Quedlinburg, there
to take the veil, and by a life of prayer and holy service to seek of
God pardon for my father’s soul and for yours.”
I fell on my knees at her feet in a last burst of mortified and
angered entreaty. “Hear me,” I demanded; “learn first the manner of
my quitting Palaestro, _then_ you will see all otherwise.”
“I will hear nothing. A man capable of living as you have lived
is capable of any manner of lie. You run from the arms of that
cardinal’s daughter to mine. Go back to her. Our Blankenburg pride
has fallen low--but not so low that I must sell myself to such as
you. At Quedlinburg there is rest, peace, quietude. I can pray for
your salvation all day, and hear the church bells ring. Perhaps
if God will hear my prayers, and you for the rest of your life do
truly repent, we shall meet--hereafter, when the cleansing fire of
purgatory has bathed and burned us both clean. But now, farewell.”
I seized the fold of her long robe.
“Now, by the lightnings of heaven,” I adjured, “do not talk of
this folly, this throwing of your life away. God never made you
for prayer, and fast, and vigil. Ilsa, Ilsa,--I know you better
than yourself. You were made for the great banquet, the glittering
lights, the galloping hunt, the keen wind on the woodlands, the
stately court,--or mayhap for those other joys,--the joys of the
noble home, the laughter and prattle of children. There are ten
myriad nuns in Germany wearying God with overmany rosaries and
prayers. There is only one Ilsa von Blankenburg.”
Very gently, but with commanding firmness, she put my hand from her
dress.
“Our speech grows painful, my Lord Graf,” she said with frigid
dignity. “I have long since pondered everything you say. God keep
you. Farewell.”
The arras closed behind her. I was standing staring blankly around
the long, dark room.
* * * * *
I cannot tell how I made my way again back to the Regenstein. All
the folk in the two castles and in all the peasant huts for leagues
around soon knew how I had come to the Gräfin with fair offer of
equal marriage and had been utterly flouted. It was days before I
would stir from my own apartments. Moritz indeed came to me, angered
perhaps more than I; telling how he had used every possible argument
and threat upon his sister, how little they had profited, yet
offering to bring to bear yet more; but I forbade him. I would not
have the miserable matter prolonged.
“And I fear you are right,” spoke Moritz sadly at parting; “we
Blankenburgers are a hard, obstinate stock, and Ilsa--why she is only
one of us.”
Twice, then, standing in a darkened chamber, within a short time, I
had broken with a woman who had trodden close along my path,--and
where was I now? I think if my pride had not intervened I would
even have turned back to Italy and Marianna. But although I was
possibly willing to confess myself a knave, I was totally unable to
confess myself an entire fool. And I told myself that the sting of
the charges flung at me by Ilsa was false. I was not vilest of the
vile. I was strong, resolute, clothed with integrity. If for a little
season I had lapsed from what the prudish deemed strict propriety,
I had answered the call of my better instincts, and responded with
the firmness of a born Stoic. And I could recall a thousand cases
of worthies, ancient and modern, applauded as cavaliers or heroes,
beside whom my recent entanglement with Marianna rose to the level of
sheer saintliness.
So with my own self-righteousness, and, as I afterwards came to
recognize, an awakening conscience, for chief companions, I passed
the most unprofitable, tedious, dreary winter of my life. I did not
refuse Moritz’s company, and a few blunt and bearish petty nobles of
the region accepted my hospitality, but real comradeship there was
none. I wearied of the endless boar hunts, which Adolf prescribed as
the infallible remedy for ennui. Barring the toothless old chaplain,
there was not a soul in the Regenstein who could read my books; and
even he (reverend dotard) was mostly in his cups, and his sermons on
Sunday were rambling stories, such as how St. Peter, when revisiting
this earth, cheated his inn-keeper out of the reckoning.
As for Luther (at whose summons I had returned to Germany) I could
not think of him for a while save with an inward curse. _He_ it was
who had destroyed that jaunty peace of mind which had been my comfort
and stay so long. But for him I would be well-groomed, happy, and
elegant at Palaestro or some other charming retreat in Italy. If his
enemies snatched him away to the stake, I almost thought I would
run to bring the faggots. Yet all the while my thoughts would flit
from Luther, from Palaestro, from Rome, from everything else, to
Ilsa: always to Ilsa. For I knew now as I never knew on the day I
had ridden forth to demand her hand, how much I had loved her, and
that with her passing, there passed from my soul the richest part
of my being. Inconsistent, all this? Assuredly. Life is one great
inconsistency.
Concerning Ilsa I presently heard that, after a novitiate shortened
under a dispensation, she had entered the convent at Quedlinburg.
“She was dead to the world.”
Thus went by this most intolerable winter.
CHAPTER XVI
THE GREAT WORD AT LEIPZIG
All things mundane will end, and so at last did that winter. As never
before I enjoyed the springtime, the return of leaf and greenery,
the singing of the brooks, the pine-laden breezes down the hills, a
northern springtime incomparably superior to the milder contrasts of
like seasons in Italy.
The new life and color put me in a better mind. If Marianna and Ilsa
were no more for me, at least the larks were climbing upward in the
deepening blue of the sky, and life had still its recompenses. At
five-and-twenty few men are willing to cry out on life as “failure.”
As assuagement for my troubles I had sought to throw myself into the
life of my Regensteiners, studying their problems, and seeking their
betterment. That winter and spring I won their esteem, and I hoped
I was winning their affection. “The kind Graf!” I once heard little
children calling me in the hamlet below the castle; and all that day
I thought less bitterly touching Ilsa.
I tarried the more at the Regenstein because I believed Dr. Luther
needed no more help. A smooth-spoken envoy from Rome, Miltitz, a
Saxon by birth, had come out of the South. He had reproved Tetzel so
bitterly for his sins that the wretch had slunk away to his cloister
to die. He had glossed over difficulties with Luther, and by fine
words gotten a promise to drop the dispute on both sides, “so that it
might soon bleed itself to death.” A hollow truce it proved, but for
a little I honestly thought the battle had ended almost ere its fair
beginning.
Meantime pilgrim or pedlar brought much news to the Regenstein.
Old Kaiser Maximilian was dead, and Europe was buzzing over the
succession. Prince Charles of Spain and the Netherlands, and King
Francis of France were draining their coffers to find money to bribe
the seven prince electors who had the imperial gift in their keeping.
Many a good German wagged his beard with an “Oh that Frederick of
Saxony would take the power!” but that canny elector foresaw the
storms and shrank back modestly. Every day brought new rumors of new
intrigues, and I was vastly in doubt whither in the political world I
could turn myself with the most hope of advancement and honor, when
fresh tidings from Wittenberg called me back to the thing whereon my
heart had really been fixed the longest. The truce betwixt Luther and
his monkish opponents had been broken by the furious onslaughts of
Johann Eck, Professor at Ingolstadt; then, after the usual thrust and
parry by pamphlets, the contest had reached a climax. Eck was to hold
a public disputation on the moot points of theology with Luther and
his now ardent champion Carlstadt. Duke George of Ducal Saxony[7] had
consented to allow his city of Leipzig to be the scene of encounter,
and toward this intellectual tournament a vast multitude of scholars
and students were not ashamed to hasten.
The tidings left me only one thing to do. The pretext of pushing my
interest at the ducal court was sufficient to bring me to Leipzig,
and the following excerpt from a letter to Moritz (whose friendship
was ever tightening) tells its own story.
* * * * *
“Why has my life become thus blended with the Augustinian friar
of Wittenberg? Why do I feel that for woe or for weal his destiny
and my own have become as one? At his summons I have been
transported from Italy to the Harzland. At the news of his going
to Leipzig I hasten there also. And wherefore--O Moritz? We have
talked this matter full often, I know, sitting before the roaring
logs by the great fireplace in the Regenstein. And my answer came
not then. It does not come now. Only I am become more certain
than ever that in following Martin Luther I am following the high
destiny not of wide Germany merely (daily I grow more convinced
of that), but likewise my own. Do I attain to the mountain summit
with the dawn, or the black precipice and the deadly chaos
beyond? I cannot answer. I can only follow my guide.
“I have had no words with him as yet. He has been too busy
with the theologians, friendly and hostile. I reached this
busy, stately Saxon city in its hot plain beside the winding
Pleisse several days before him. Already the place swarmed with
visitors from distant parts of Germany; not fur-gowned _Magistri
Theologiae_ simply, but intelligent merchants, the better class
of monks and friars, and not a few noblemen like myself, as well
as a horde of itinerant scholars and alleged students. Duke
George the local prince is a bluff, honest-hearted ruler, whose
mind I fear has been prejudiced against Luther by the fanatically
minded professors of the local university, but who through all
has striven to give fair play. I was offered hospitality at the
ducal schloss, the lofty towered Pleissenburg; but I preferred
the greater freedom of comfortable quarters at the Erbprinz,
which rejoices in a very clean and friendly landlord.
“Sometimes I wonder what future generations will think of us;
whether they will imagine that all Germans of the summer of
this 1519 were wholly given over to the quips and small coin
of theology. Indeed, it has been passing marvellous to hear the
learned debates on ‘Release from Purgatory,’ or ‘The Authority
of Papal Bulls,’ which are bandied about almost by cobblers and
tapsters. For the matter is far beyond any small question of
castigating poor Tetzel now. ‘The fountains of the great deep are
broken up’ even as I heard an angry monk protesting; it is no
longer a matter of mere indulgences: everything ecclesiastical
down to the nicest questions of Papal prerogative has been
cast into the hopper of debate. But I am rambling: let me
particularize in greater order.
“On June 27th the Wittenberg disputants entered Leipzig.
Carlstadt was in the first wagon, Luther in the second with his
new friend and protégé, young Professor Philip Melanchthon,
whom, they say, is the greatest classical scholar of Germany.
The learned travellers seemed dusty and shaken, thanks to the
springless, open wagons. As escort marched some two hundred
fantastically arrayed Wittenberg students, all carrying pikes,
come to win fair play for their university champions. A mandate
of the local bishop was posted on the church doors, forbidding
the whole debate, but no one heeded it. Bishops do well to walk
warily in Germany just now.
“The disputation did not actually begin until the 27th, the
interval being consumed in much preliminary wrangling over
details. Officialdom in Leipzig was only coldly courteous to
Dr. Luther, for the place had been too long a ‘Dominican town.’
Merely a few ‘Nicodemuses’ called on him in the evenings, while
the university professors gave great feasts, with plenty of
Torgau beer, for Eck, his opponent: but everywhere men’s tongues
went buzzing, morning, noon, and night. I am told that several
learned ‘doctors’ lodging together even fell into such violent
disputes that their good host was fain to station a police
sergeant at the head of the table, with a halberd, to ensure
peace during the meals.
“Distinguished guests, too, entered the city: Duke Barnim of
Pomerania, then Rector Magnificus of Wittenberg University,
also the young Prince George of Anhalt, and a privy councillor
to Elector Frederick. The night before the disputation I found
myself in a cool, dungerous, underground wine-room on the
Grimmaische-Strasse, known as Auerbach’s Keller. The wine was
excellent. The crowd of tippling students and well-to-do burghers
varied and interesting. I was sitting a little alone, meditating
over my beaker, when I saw at the long black table before me a
capped and gowned doctor I knew by description must be Magister
Eck, Luther’s adversary; and I was curious to observe this
self-appointed champion of the Vatican. I believe it was not mere
partiality that prevents me from praising him highly. He is a
tall, broad-shouldered fellow; his voice strong, even strident,
and with a southern brogue that betrays his Suabian birth. I
can best describe his face by saying he seemed to possess the
mouth, eyes, and cheeks of a butcher rather than of a divine;
nevertheless I easily gathered he was of no mean acuteness and
learning, and the event proved that he was not an unworthy
champion in the lists against Dr. Martin.
“Before one or two Dominican companions Eck was delivering
himself as to the approaching debate. Perhaps the good cheer had
loosened his tongue a little. At least his opinions were not
cautious.
“‘You say that Luther carries the devil around with him like
a wizard in a little box. Well--I don’t know whether he’s in
Luther’s box or under his frock, but _liebe Gott_, he is in one
or the other, and I will smoke him out.’
“‘What do you mean, Magister Doctor?’ asked one of the satellites
respectfully.
“‘I mean this fellow from Wittenberg has played the two-faced
Janus long enough. With one tongue he still cries out his
personal respect and loyalty to the Pope; with the other he
denounces all the props and stays of Papal prerogative. I’ll
unmask his heresy. It will look like a case for faggots and fire
when I am done with him.’
“Hereupon with a rustle and sweep of his gown Doctor Eck started
up the stairs. An intelligent student, who sat near by cast a
sidling glance at me, then asked:
“‘What does your nobility think of this gentleman and his
adversary?’
“‘What do you?’ I retorted, always glad to draw out another.
“‘I remember Gregory von Heimburg’s saying, “Safer is it to
discuss the powers of God than of the Pope”; but I will venture
this: Eck will succeed in his wish. He will make Luther draw the
sword and fling afar the scabbard--and then,’ he added with a
laugh,--‘the war of the gods and the giants!’
“And with that he went out also: but it makes one’s heart beat
quicker to know that others than oneself recognize that these are
strange and marvellous times; that old things seem passing away,
that church, belief, everything seem about to become new. Yet
again I digress. Let me return.
“On the morning of the 27th, in the great hall of the
Pleissenburg, under the shadow of its tall gray turret, began
the disputation. The preliminaries were solemn, important, and
unspeakably tedious. An address of welcome by Professor Pistoris,
a mass in the church of St. Thomas, a longer address on ‘the
right way of disputing’ by Professor Mosellanus, who evidently
had persuaded himself he was a master of Latin eloquence, then
a threefold chanting of the ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus,’ the whole
assembly kneeling. Seventy-five armed citizens stood guard, and
four notaries and thirty assistants took down the discussion.
The festally arrayed hall was graced by the presence of Duke
George and a great company of his princely and noble guests.
In the front rows sat many of the Leipzig priests, Eck’s loyal
supporters; but I grieve to say they slept soundly much of the
time, and it was needful to awaken them when the discussions
ended, lest they should lose their dinners. Small pulpits were
set, suitably facing each other, for the use of the disputants,
and so you can imagine the scene.
“You are no theologian, Moritz, nor am I; therefore I will not
weary you with the dry straw of much of this debate. Esteem
Eck as you may, at least praise him for having a prodigious
memory--able to cite innumerable books--and a leathern set of
lungs, absolutely tireless. A _whole week_, believe me, did Eck
and Carlstadt dispute together on ‘free will’ and the manner by
which God exercised His saving grace. And the spider webs of
theology were wound on and on, until we layman were fain to curse
the disputation and all its hair-splitting, and bid Pope, Church,
heretics, and sacred books all cheerfully go to the devil. But on
July 4th Carlstadt had spent his wit and subtlety, and retired,
and Dr. Luther rose to do combat with Eck.
“Ah! the change! For this world of ours loves a Man, be he called
Pope or peasant; and Martin Luther, I will maintain before
kings and emperors, _is_ a Man. His tall frame seemed a little
more spare and lean than formerly; a little deeper and more
‘other-worldly’ the light in his wonderful eyes: but his voice
had the old-time power and ring, and from his first sentence men
hung on his utterance as never on the choicely turned Latin of
Carlstadt. But how shall I summarize for you the debate? Though
it is scarce needful, for twenty printing presses will soon fling
it all to wide Germany. The combatants came to grips at once as
to the nature of the Papal power. All the first day of their duel
they feinted over questions of Scripture, over the condition of
the Eastern Christians who denied the authority of Rome, and
the like. Eck was fluent and nimble. He was Luther’s peer in
adroitness if not in earnestness. Then on their second day, Eck
brought to bear his most potent demicannon: we all sat upright
when we heard a malignant word--Hus.
“‘Forasmuch, Magister Doctor,’ spoke the Papalist champion with
emphatic emphasis, ‘in my own judgment--be it however humble and
frail, your theses at Wittenberg do favor the errors of Wyclif,
the English heretic, and more particularly those of the Bohemian
John Hus and his followers, whose evil doctrines the Church has
most righteously condemned; I cannot but call this grievous
fact to the knowledge of his Ducal Grace here, and this noble
assembly. Nay, I am well informed that the Hussite heretics still
persisting in Bohemia have wished you prosperity. Do I not justly
demand your opinion of them?’
“I saw the tall form of Dr. Luther straighten. The fire in his
eye seemed to kindle brighter, answering the insinuating smile
with which Eck opposed him.
“‘You do ill, learned Doctor, to cast this in my teeth. I have
ever opposed and do now oppose the Bohemian schismatics who have
cut themselves off from the Church. Their unbrotherly conduct
has violated God’s precept of love: nevertheless as to their
doctrines, and those of Hus, their chief, some, I confess, seem
to me Christian and Scriptural; as, for example,--that to believe
in the supremacy of the Church of Rome is not necessary for
salvation.’
“‘Not necessary for salvation?’ reiterated Eck with well-feigned
astonishment. ‘Do I hear you, Reverendissime, entirely aright?’
“‘Entirely so.’ Luther spoke as calmly as though he did not
realize that absolute silence held the long hall, and every man
could hear his own breathing. ‘I repeat, this article seems to me
evangelical and unheretical.’
“‘But the learned Doctor forgets,’ pressed the interlocutor
blandly. ‘This is not a matter for settlement by the Vatican.
Hus’s doctrines were not condemned by the Pope merely. He was
banned and anathematized by the famous Council of Constance, the
assembly of the piety and wisdom of Christendom.’
“‘I understand that clearly, reverend Sir,’ replied the unmoved
Wittenberger dryly.
“‘And yet even you have formerly pronounced Councils a fit appeal
on matters of faith from the Pope.’
“‘So I have: but I am mortal. I can change.’
“‘Where, then, have you any final authority in matters of faith?
For authority one must have--else how may man shun damnation?’
“‘We have authority.’
“‘Will the learned Doctor name it?’
“I saw Luther’s long lean finger go out towards the ponderous
book that chanced to lie on the table before Duke George.
“‘Behold it, Magister Eck: God’s Word.’
“‘And who shall interpret it, if not Pope or Council?’
“‘You, I, any pure-minded, believing Christian.’
“The retort shook Eck out of his sneering complacence.
“‘Saints and angels! Do you say the apostolic Popes and holy
Councils of all the prelates of the Church are not to be regarded
as against the interpretation _you_ would put upon any utterance
of Scripture?’
“‘Yes.’ Luther was still calm, but a visible agitation was
running through the assembly. Men leaned forward, tugged at their
beards, and felt their hearts beat.
“‘And you set _your_ judgment in matters of faith against the
mighty and universal Council of Constance? You dare assert that
_you_ are right,--that in the matter of the Hussites the Council
was wrong?’
“For a good half minute they faced one another in silence. No
duel or tourney could have been more tense. Then slowly Luther
spoke: his noble voice was not strained, but it rang clearly down
the hall.
“‘Touching the Council of Constance, I say it was not
participated in nor assented to by the Eastern Christians, yet
God forbid that I should call them unsaved heretics for that. But
this I also assert, that no man may rightly impose on another an
article of belief which is contrary to Scripture: and I say more;
_the judgment of one poor Christian is worth more than that of
Pope or assembled Council--if that he has but the better ground
for it_!’
“Spoken out at last! Martin Luther had indeed borrowed the
prudence of valor and cast away the scabbard. A suppressed outcry
sounded all over the hall. I heard Duke George mutter, ‘A plague
upon it!’ Many heads shook ominously. The Dominicans present were
open-eyed with horror. But John Eck’s horror was, I think, hiding
a smile. He had indeed accomplished his desire and boast. He had
smoked the heretic out.
“With a great clap Eck brought his hands together the moment
Luther’s words seemed to have sunk into the assembly.
“‘If the Reverend Father,’ he spoke bitingly, ‘believes that even
a Council can err, he is to me as a heathen and a publican.’
“Luther attempted some rejoinder, but it was lost on us. We
had heard that for which we had waited wearily. The Wittenberg
friar had finally spoken his true mind. Not prelate nor Pope;
not learned doctor nor Council, to Luther’s thinking, can solve
the relation of man to his Maker; but the man himself, aided
only by the light he gathers in humility from the Scripture. A
strange doctrine. The like has really not been since Christianity
began. Will the present world bear it? I will waste no ink on
the answer. I only believe that we shall all behold great and
marvellous things.
“The climax of the disputation came then, but not the end. To
the 13th of July the debate kept up, Luther amplifying and
defending his first strong statement, that even a Council could
err, and that no man should believe aught contrary to Scripture.
Marvellous learning he displayed, casting at Eck not the later
schoolmen, but the weighty authority of St. Augustine and the
other early ‘Fathers’: but the end was all the same. It is not
at Leipzig this disputation will be settled, but in all Germany:
nay--I think--in broad Christendom. For two days more Carlstadt
resumed the colloquy. Finally, on the 16th, the disputation ended
with due ceremony, and a solemn blowing by the city pipers. The
formal decision has been referred to the universities of Paris
and Erfurt. In a few days I hope to join you, Moritz, in the
Harzland; but I know your eagerness for news, and I send you this
letter by a prompt messenger.”
FOOTNOTES:
[7] Saxony was then divided into “Electoral Saxony” under Frederick,
and “Ducal Saxony” under George.--EDITOR.
CHAPTER XVII
DR. LUTHER GIVES COURAGE
I wrote thus to Moritz, an honest friend, but one who dwelled much
on the surface of the water. I could not bring myself to write him
all that had passed at Leipzig since my coming. Afterwards I heard
that, despite the very cold civility which the city magistrates and
Duke George had given Dr. Luther, many a candid man who had gone to
the disputation friendly to Eck, came away admiring his champion’s
lungs and adroitness, yet in his heart of hearts wishing well to
Luther and his daring gospel. But I confess towards the close of the
disputation I was thinking less and less of what the world would say
of the Wittenberg friar, and more and more of what I ought to say
myself. For if Dr. Luther’s gospel meant anything, it meant that I,
Walter von Regenstein, had a duty towards God and man which I could
neither cast upon the Church, nor annihilate by the conventionalities
of pagan philosophy. For be it remembered, despite my candid endeavor
now to play the German, my education was that of a child of Italy--of
the Italy of the wonderful close of the wonderful fifteenth century;
and almost with my nurse’s milk I had been taught a doctrine that
will sound strange to my pious grandchildren, nurtured in the spirit
of our glorious North German Reformation. “Assent with lips to the
teachings of the Church,” spoke the doctrine, “say the appointed
_Credo_, profess reverence for all holy things, never allow doubt
or questioning to pass from vague inquiry into heretical action--do
this, and eat, drink, be merry; enjoy all things human law does not
too absolutely forbid; if, then, there be a hereafter for the soul,
the Church you have served will care for it. The Church will deliver
you in safety into the great Forever even as the skilful shipmaster
delivers the passive freightage after the tedious voyage.”
Some of my preceptors had taught this doctrine almost in set words:
all had taught it in their lives. How could a high-born youth idle
in the sun before the Duomo of Florence, or drift on the shimmering
Grand Canal at Venice and learn otherwise? Two things alone saved me
from too implicit acquiescence in this teaching. The first was the
fact that I had become too intimately acquainted with this engine of
soul salvation, whilst working its many wheels at Rome. The second
was an inherited spirit of independent honesty which never allowed me
(at least with easy conscience) to shift a responsibility to another,
or to set over myself a moral and spiritual keeper. Therefore I had
of late years been a pagan in private thought, not from any inherent
tendency to deliberate atheism, but because while tacitly repudiating
the right of the Church to think for me, I had sluggishly refused to
think for myself. But now had come on my scene two beings--Luther,
Ilsa. And the eyes of my soul saw how differently!
Touching Ilsa I say merely this. In Italy I had drifted from one
dubious amour to another after the fashion of my rank and age. My
connection with Marianna had been the last, the most enduring,
because the Cardinal’s daughter had possessed the most to offer in
keen intelligence, and a penetrating wit that passed far beyond
ordinary charm and vivacity. Of my mother’s sex I had formed a
painfully low moral estimate. In Ilsa I had seen an attractive girl,
physically comely and naïvely interesting. When I had broken with
Marianna it had been the most natural thing in the world for me to
conclude that it was time for me to marry, that the season of sowing
tares was over, and that I needed a dignified and congenial countess.
Such surely would prove Ilsa. But the manner of her refusal had
stirred me to the depths of my being. For the first time I realized
how infinitely lifted above a commonplace man a high-minded and truly
good woman might be: what strength, uplift, nay, stretching towards
the God-like, might come from her unselfish companionship; how, in
brief, my soul craved, not a suitable consort, but a heaven-gifted
wife. It was a new experience for me. From my eyes had fallen, as it
had been, scales. And in the moment of the realization of my need, I
had lost the one being that I knew could satisfy it. Would ever the
mercy of that heaven I had mistrusted and defied take away the pang?
All--all seemed darkly hid.
Touching Luther I had thought quite as much as concerning Ilsa,
albeit in a different fashion. What I said to him on the night the
disputation ended will bear its own story.
* * * * *
I had refrained from thrusting myself upon Dr. Luther all through
those days in Leipzig. Once when quitting the hall of disputation
he had cast me a friendly smile and nod, but on the night of the
14th of July, when I found that he was on the point of returning to
Wittenberg without waiting for Eck and Carlstadt to complete their
last hair-splitting, I saw no need for longer hesitancy. Luther I
must see, and that without delay.
He was lodged at the humble Augustinian convent on a narrow street
by the Pleissenburg. A warm rain was plashing down, the darkening
streets were deserted after the long summer evening. A lay brother
let me in, and ran upstairs to announce my coming. I was quickly
bidden to ascend, and there, in a small, whitewashed room, and again
by faint candle-light, I saw the Man.
The light was faint but through it all shone his illuminating smile.
Up to me with long brave steps he strode, and his hand closed tightly
over mine.
“I knew you would come,” was all he said, and then made haste to
pluck off my wet cloak and shake it with a zest and vigor that at
another moment would have set me laughing.
“Yes, Dr. Luther,” I said quietly, “you see I am your obedient
parishioner. Your letter found me in Italy; I returned to the
Harzland, and now--here I am.”
He eyed me kindly but shrewdly. Both of us were anxious to speak of
near, but tender, things, and it was hard to begin. So for a moment
we bartered commonplaces. I complimented him upon the skill he had
shown in the debate. He shrugged his shoulders in displeasure.
“We had words, words, words. _Vox et praeterea nihil._ It has been a
mere loss of time, this disputation, not an honest searching after
truth. For two years’ time we have been examining these doctrines of
Eck: we have counted all their bones. Now comes this fellow, and he
has made more outcry in one hour than we in two years.”
“Hardly that,” I returned, smiling. “I think you said somewhat
concerning the Councils and the Hussites which all Germany will hear.”
“_Liebe Gott_, yes! I saw Eck’s trap, and with both eyes open walked
into it. That will indeed make a cawing and rattling among the rooks
and daws. But it was Heaven’s will the truth should come out. As well
now as a little later--it was God’s way.”
“Cawing and rattling it will make, I promise you. I think the
rattling will reëcho even in Rome. It will sound strange.”
He glanced about the room in the sly manner of a child about to
whisper some naughtiness, then plucked my arm and put his face
against my ear.
“Let me whisper it. The thing has been growing on me long. I have
tried to resist. Now I am made certain.”
“What is it?” I demanded.
“The true name of the Pope is ‘Anti-Christ.’”
“You will proclaim this?” for even I was startled.
“When God wills. It must all come out in His time.”
I admit, as he spoke, the vision of His Holiness’s sumptuous
court; the pageants of the Vatican; the innumerable Monsignori,
chamberlains, ushers, cardinals; the vision of the Vicar of Peter
himself enthroned beneath the triple tiara, all came before me; and
against them stood the dark-robed friar in the whitewashed room. What
equality? But I was in no mood for debating then. I had come to this
friar with a burdened soul. Here, if anywhere, I must find release.
In a kind of desperation I darted out upon my task.
“Doctor Martin, I am not come to talk of Eck, or Papal Powers, or of
Indulgences. I am come to talk of that which is to me nearer, dearer;
my own soul. I am as a man crushed under an intolerable weight. I
have done that which was evil in the sight of man and God. I am full
of earthly wisdom--it profits me nothing. I am rich, and nobly born.
Of what avail? The meanest peasant upon my Regenstein lands can look
up to heaven with better conscience than I. For he has been given
little, and must repay little. And I have been given the best of the
world--and how can I ever repay--” Here I know my tongue clove in my
mouth, my eyes were wet. I felt a hand, firm and comforting, upon my
shoulder.
“Poor lad.”
That was all; but it sent an answering thrill of warmth through all
my veins. I started to fall on my knees.
“Oh, Father, Father Martin. I have not confessed these many years to
a priest, but now I confess to you. Hear me, hear--”
“Never am I ‘Father’ to such as you. Call me Brother. ‘Brother
Martin,’ your brother in Christ, by whose dear name we are taught to
have hope in heaven. And now talk to me, Walter, talk to me even as a
man talketh to his friend.”
“Walter?” So to this heretic friar I was not Graf von Regenstein, but
only brother and familiar friend. The thought brought infinite joy. I
stood again, and let him lead me to a hard oaken bench. And there we
sat down together, his arm around my shoulders, even as my father’s
had been the night before he departed to his last battle. And once
started, all the tale of my youth came out. Frivolities or worse at
Florence and Rome that must have vexed my companion’s very ears; the
story of my career with Marianna; the circumstances of my banishment
to Germany; my hour of temptation at Mainz and how I had yielded; and
finally how I had quitted Palaestro, and my last sad encounter with
Ilsa.
Then silence at length, after I had poured out the very dregs of my
spirit. At last Dr. Martin’s deep voice answered me.
“They are very joyful in heaven this night.”
“What do you mean?”
“Is it not written, ‘joy shall be in heaven over one wanderer that
repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons who need no
repentance?’”
“Ah, yes, Brother Martin, but being sorry is not being healed. You
have taught me the folly of the indulgence papers that have salved so
many. I am very sick.”
“Sick indeed _liebe_ Walter; and it is not easy to name the saint
for your ailment. St. Antonius avails they say for swollen limbs,
St. Blasius for a stiff neck; but whom save the Lord Christ for the
illness of the soul.”
“You speak of Him. He is very far away and strange. Socrates I can
understand, and Plato and Plotinus. I can see in divers saints of
the Church examples to honor, nay imitate; but the Lord Himself--it
is hard.”
Dr. Martin’s strong hand clinched.
“Oh! Rome, this is thy handiwork--the building of high bulwarks
’twixt the soul that seeks and the God that loves. Have you, Walter,
ever _believed_ that you believed the formal teachings of the Church?”
“In a blind and formal way, yes. They have never entered into my
life.”
My companion gave a bitter laugh.
“You remember the story told by Erasmus. A man lay dying. The devil
came to him, striving to trip him into some heresy, then snatch his
soul. Thus they debated, the devil asking, ‘What do you believe?’
‘What the Church believes.’ ‘And what does the Church believe?’ ‘What
I believe.’ ‘And what then _do_ you believe?’ ‘Why, what the Church
believes.’--The chain seems endless. You are brought to a trackless
desert, starving and without water.”
“Even so.”
“Well, then, Walter mine, a great sinner am I, but not Erasmus’s
devil; so answer me. Is there nothing you truly believe in, beyond
the certitude of your own wretchedness?”
“Yes, one thing. I cannot say with sincerity ‘I believe in God,’ but
I can say to all the world ‘I believe in Martin Luther.’”
He withdrew his arm suddenly.
“_Absit omen!_ this must never be. Have I not burdens enough to bear,
without having to play the God in your eyes?”
“It is you, Brother Martin, that have convinced me that theology is
not the vilest snare ever invented to pilfer the pockets of silly
men.”
“And yet you say you believe in me, though not in God. Why is that?”
“Because in you I have seen that which I would fain have God to be.”
Luther averted his face.
“Sinner I am! And yet you say this? But at length I see the light in
your gropings. Not Brother Martin you reverence, but the essence of
God, which shines by His Grace through me, however unworthy. This is
beyond my deserts. Yet I am glad. For I see your way to happiness.”
“Tell it: ah! tell.”
“Do not fret too sorely over matters of faith and belief. Long ago it
was written ‘He who will do the will, shall know the doctrine.’ Do
not be over-curious as to the dark things before which human wisdom
springs back baffled. Man’s reason and philosophy can teach how to
build houses, to live decent and honest; nay, sometimes to achieve
earthly greatness. But how man should come to God and His dear Son,
and how sinful folk may be born unto eternal life,--philosophy
teaches none of that. ‘The kingdom of heaven cometh not with
observation.’ The knowledge comes to the open and penitent heart, by
the free spirit of grace descending through God’s word.”
“But, O Brother Martin,” my speech came hard;--my whole soul seemed
straining to express itself with my tongue,--“you have railed long at
the hypocricies of the would-be righteous, and yet is there nothing
that a needy man may do that can avail. Are pilgrimage, oblation,
austerities,--all the things wherewith men of a former time have
tried to turn an angry heaven,--are they now profitless forever?”
In the dim candle-light I could see him smile, while his deep voice
rolled out the majestic sentences.
“Is it not written, ‘_He hath showed thee O Man, what is good. And
what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God._’ And yet again, ‘_Is not
this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness,
to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that
ye break every yoke._’”
“If that were all. If that were all.” I kept repeating, my head still
burning, “but the Church has taught so long--”
Luther silenced me with a commanding gesture. “Forget the Church.
The builders of the Church were men--I dare say it, very fallible
men. Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, nay, even St.
Francis and St. Dominic, had their sins as well as you and I. They
can err. All men can err. Popes can err most of all. Full many of
them, if their history foreshadows anything, are now in hell. Since
my struggle began I have delved deep into Church history. I have
found so much clay mingled with the brass and iron of the builders of
the Church that I must call them weak indeed. But one thing is not of
men. It is of God. It is steadfast, sure. Therefore--_read_!”
“Read what?”
“Read THE BOOK!”
“The Scriptures?”
“You have said it. Have you never read God’s Word?”
“I have read the lore of the Greeks and the Latins; of Dante, of
Petrarch, and all the later Italians; nay, I have studied the ‘gay
poetry’ of the troubadours of Provence. I have dipped in your Wolfram
von Eschenbach and your Walter von der Vogelweide. But what you call
‘The Book’ I have not read. Once at Padua in the library I took up
a Vulgate. My preceptor caught me. ‘Read it no more,’ he commanded;
‘it is a work for beggarly friars, not for signori of _virtù_. The
Latin of St. Jerome is execrable. It will ruin your Ciceronian
style.’ Later when I had mastered Greek, I thought of reading the
New Testament in the original. Behold,--I was warned the Gospels and
Epistles were without Attic idiom; I must eschew them or my taste
were ruined!”
Again came Dr. Martin’s bitter laugh.
“O master counsel of the devil! Surely God is mightier than he, else
this Book would long since have been destroyed--for from of old the
fiend has raged against it. By a miracle it has been preserved, and
it will confound the powers of darkness yet. Against this Book have
raged many potentates--of Egypt, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
They are gone. The Book remains, and will remain forever and ever;
for it is a fiery shield, of more substance, and purer than gold.
Tried in the fire it overcomes the fury of the raging heat: and even
so he who trustingly uses this shield overcomes all. He stands secure
everlastingly, against all human misfortune. With this shield he
fears nothing: nor death, nor hell, nor all the devils.”
Then again after a long pause he commanded, “READ!”
“I promise it.”
“Read. ‘And the Lord God will give thee light.’ Day and night, my
Walter, have I sought heaven on my knees for you since that evening
we talked together in Wittenberg--you and I. And now Eck, Caïetanus,
the Dominicans, the Pope,--all, all are forgotten. I grow strong and
bold. For heaven has given me my heart’s desire. I am given your
soul, O Walter--brother, mine, mine.”
He cast his arms about me, and kissed me; we knelt down together, and
he uttered a prayer for me the like whereof I had never heard, no,
not in the holiest basilica in Rome. We arose and again he kissed me.
“Go back to Regenstein,” he enjoined. “Be a just lord unto your
peasants. You shall answer for them to God. Care for the little
children. See that the lads and maids live true and honest. Read
and pray diligently, but be not over-anxious for a sudden resolving
of doubts and the gift of miracles. And if in the months to come it
be God’s will to work a great change on the face of Germany and all
Christendom, be ready, a valiant helper, to do the deed He commands.”
“And Ilsa,” I asked at parting; “shall I crush her forever from
memory?”
“Bow to God’s will,” he answered slowly. “He can bring to pass doings
that may be marvellous in our eyes. All lies in His hands. Do not pry
too far into the future. Let the morrow care for itself. And yet”--he
hesitated as he spoke--“the day may come when even nuns’ veils, and
vows, and convent walls will be as a tale that is told. For we live
amid the Lord’s doings. They are marvellous in our eyes.”
And then I passed out into the warm, rainy night.
* * * * *
The next day, without waiting for Carlstadt and Eck to conclude their
final arguments, Dr. Luther left Leipzig for Wittenberg. When I hear
men criticize him as being harsh and uncharitable in dealing with
opponents I recall one of his acts whilst in Leipzig,--how he wrote
a letter of comfort and condolence to no less a person than Johann
Tetzel, who lay dying in ignominy, execrated even by the Papalists,
at the Dominican convent. “The matter had passed beyond him,” Luther
assured the miserable indulgence vendor, “not Tetzel was the author
of the great contention, but quite another, greater than he.” And so
with consolation from the man he had berated, on July the 4th, while
Luther was locking horns with Eck, the fellow died. Let his judgment
be left with God.
I travelled with Dr. Martin back to Wittenberg. He was weary
physically and mentally, and glad to be again in his quiet home
cloister. On the journey I made the happy friendship of his _fidus
Achates_, young Professor Melanchthon, whose classical learning
nobly used was to be such a prop to Luther, such an ally to the
Reformation. After a stay of some weeks at the University, amid
pleasant comradeship, I did as I had been bidden--I returned to the
Regenstein.
CHAPTER XVIII
I HEAR OF ILSA
Now for the first time I began truly to labor for what did not
concern that most unsatisfactory thing called myself. That a man
of parts and fortune owed anything in the way of service to his
fellow-men, beyond observing the polite social conventionalities, is
something I learned from no preceptor in Padua, Bologna, or Florence.
But I strove to make amends now; and perhaps the mere novelty of
the task made it the more pleasing. With all the energy that in me
lay I applied myself to studying and bettering the condition of
my peasants. Here were over a thousand folk with immortal souls,
dwelling in the Regenstein and the hamlets around it, and I their
absolute lord and master, with “imperial right of pit and gallows”;
in other words, with power to consign them to any form of misery,
including the grave. My father had left his German lordship largely
to Adolf’s rough rule and fostering, and the latter shaggy individual
had dispensed a severe but at least impartial justice. Now, however,
I resolved to prove that because a nobleman spoke Latin and read
Greek, he was not incapacitated for studying the needs of his
dependants. My first step was to dismiss upon a meagre pension Father
Jakob, the chaplain who had too long afflicted the Regenstein with
the mouthings which he had called homilies, and with his irregular
life. The first Sunday after my return I had caught him in the
buttery, eating soup previous to saying mass.
“Magister Jakob,” said I, raising my eyebrows, “do you not know that
this is forbidden by the Church?”
“Nonsense, Countly Grace,” had been his answer, between the smacking
spoonfuls. “The Saviour gets through bolts and locks; and this soup
won’t stop the holy wafer.”
I left him to continue his feast, but when that day in the crowded
chapel he spent the whole sermon hour talking endlessly about the
manner of raiment worn by the angel who appeared to Mary,--whether
with white, red, or variegated clothes, and about the precise aspect
of St. Joseph, my wrath boiled over. My first duty to the Regenstein
was to see that the simple piety of my peasants was not polluted
longer by such as he.
The next day all my dependants were buzzing with a horror they hardly
suppressed in my sight. The Lord Graf had actually had Father Jakob
clapped in a dungeon, “there to stay three days, to have bread and
water only, and to meditate upon his sins,” while a messenger had
sped toward Wittenberg, begging Dr. Luther to send some pious and
tolerably learned priest! I think if Adolf had not stood stoutly by
me, my Regensteiners would have mutinied at the order to lock up the
Chaplain; for he had threatened them with all the fury of the Vatican
and the thunders of heaven. But the three days passed. Father Jakob
emerged from his dungeon a sadder and hungrier man. The pinnacles of
the Regenstein still rose proudly in the sky. No plague had swept off
the children or harried the flocks. I had won a moral victory that
gave me an invaluable hold over my peasantry. In due time an honest
and sincerely devout young parson, a pupil of Dr. Luther, came to
take up the parish, and much genuine comfort I was to gain from his
support and company.
But this was only the beginning. The peasants needed far more than
better sermons. Very few of my subjects could read, much less write.
Their huts were such that often I felt the swine were better housed
than the children. Their agriculture was utterly crude. Repeated
bad harvests had driven them to desperation. I heard many rumors
that my subjects were becoming impregnated with the _Bundschuh_
movement,--that secret league among the peasants, farther south,
which in a few years was to culminate in bloody revolt against
their lords, and infinite ruin and misery. Many were in debt to the
Halberstadt usurers, and ever becoming more hopelessly involved. All
over Germany again prices were increasing direfully. The price of
black bread had trebled in half a generation. Along with this I found
that Adolf, with a loyalty to my interest admirable in any other
case, had been exacting the uttermost farthing in the way of rents
and dues. I was horrified to learn that even while I was in Leipzig
a peasant, caught by my underlings cutting down a tree illicitly,
had had his feet put in the stocks, and his soles burned nigh to
a crisp in a slow fire. It was easy to halt deeds like that. Easy
when I had my Venetian bankers, to satisfy some of the most greedy
usurers, to distribute seed corn, and breeding cattle, to arrange for
the opening of a school in the largest hamlet, to bestow direct alms
upon the most needy. All this won me the noisy popularity which the
down-trodden will usually fling to the generous. But to put matters
so that my Regensteiners should become self-respecting, prosperous
folk, would be the work not of weeks, but of years--and of infinite
labor and patience.
For that spirit of labor and patience I made daily prayer,--for I
was frequently praying now. I tried indeed to remember Luther’s
mandate--to trust, to work, and not to question curiously; but
incessantly I read the new, strange book--the Bible. A Vulgate, a
Septuagint, an Erasmus’s Greek New Testament I had brought from
Wittenberg--and I read them with all the avidity with which as a
young lad I had first devoured the tomes of Cicero. I tried to forget
the issues of doctrine, the pressing matters of debate and doubt; to
read, to read, and ever again to read--and I marvelled more and more.
Here was a new world to me; a world of eternal spiritual values, and
I entered into it with that keen and novel delight the exploring
Spaniards must enjoy in the Indies when bursting upon some silver
city ruled by a golden-clad cazique and his feather-crowned warriors.
I remember how late, very late one night I closed the volume. I had
just finished reading the great argument of Job. “Though He slay me,
yet will I trust Him.”
“O foolish Grecians and Latinists,” I cried aloud to my empty
chamber; “will ye indeed praise Euripides and Lucretius and withhold
your praise from this!”
And every night I launched out upon my voyagings of discovery,--now
in Genesis, now in Isaiah, now in the Gospels,--and always found that
which rewarded me more than all the precious silks and porcelains
from Zipango or Cathay. A personal record this? Yes,--but I tell
no secrets: my experience was that of a myriad others up and down
broad Germany, who were for the first time learning to find the
imperishable gold, prompted by the lessons of the friar of Wittenberg.
Thus for some months I worked, read, studied, and strove to crush all
thoughts of Ilsa from my heart.
* * * * *
In October came a break in my chosen routine. Thus it came.
Pseudo-friars who eked out scanty alms by thievery, and masterless
rogues who had turned poachers, had plagued us all the summer; but
now one morning Adolf came dancing in to me with gleeful eyes and an
excited story.
“A right true robber” had been found on the Regenstein lands. He had
pillaged hen-roosts for some nights at Plattenberg, and last night
a farmer, one Gustav Lampe, had waited behind his barn, suspecting
an inroad. By the light of the moon he had caught the rascal in the
act and article of making off with a game bag of choice poultry, and
had pounced upon him. But the robber had whipped out a knife as long
as one’s arm, and left poor Lampe helpless beside the hay cock, with
a desperately wounded shoulder. Lampe had raised a great clamor. The
neighbors had turned out. The thief had dropped his bag, and run for
dear life to the western woods towards Michaelstein, and there he was
surely hiding. At first dawn they had come to the castle for dogs,
horses, and weapons, and “they did not doubt his Countly Grace would
bestir himself.”
Only one thing was left for me to do. If I could not suppress common
crime, I had lost all hold on my peasantry. Moritz was invited to
join us with a band from Blankenburg. All that day the great dogs
bayed in the wood, and some fifty of us beat up the thickets; in
mid afternoon we found our quarry. He was a tall, powerful man, and
made a desperate run for it. At last the dogs cornered him under a
giant fir tree. It was a sight when I broke in upon them,--the fellow
lunging about with his big knife, striving with despair to keep the
brutes from his throat, and the dogs all leaping at him with as good
will as upon a boar or stag. He had killed one hound already, when
Adolf whipped them off, and then he sullenly dropped his knife.
“Better hanging than being eaten alive,” he muttered between his
pantings, as my men roped his hands behind him, and we all trooped
triumphantly back to the Regenstein. The women and children came out
to greet us, as if we were Roman conquerors, and they “oh-ed,” and
“ah-ed” long at our captive. As for Adolf, without consulting me,
he ordered Rüdiger (who attended to such nice matters), “to get the
gibbet and running noose ready.” However, I was not prepared for
such speedy justice. I did not flinch from the disagreeable task of
passing on the life of a fellow-man; but hanging even a worse wretch
without formality was another matter. In the great hall I held court.
Moritz stood at my right hand as assessor; the prisoner, pale, and
pinioned, was before me; the whole room was crowded with uncouth
retainers flashing their spears and partizans; while behind the men
pressed the brightly kirtled women. The ruddy torch-light added a
touch of barbaric color to the whole. I felt I was a Turkish pasha
about to order in the black slave with his bow string.
The guilt of the prisoner was undoubted. Lampe was not so wounded
he could not come and identify. The robberies had been extensive.
The way the fellow had used his knife showed he would not stick at
murder. Adolf was already whispering to a varlet to “bring in the
new parson to confess this fine bird before he gets his dance on
nothing,” when I began to interrogate the prisoner.
“What have you to say to these charges?”
“Nothing.” He held down his head in stolid defiance.
“You know your life then is forfeit?”
“I suppose so.”
“How came a great hulking fellow of your age to turn rogue? You
should have been an honest man. Whence came you?”
“From Quedlinburg.” I saw Moritz’s ears prick.
“Quedlinburg? And what did you there?”
“I was an honest peasant on the abbey lands. A month ago the Vogt[8]
of the Abbess came to demand my rent. He required too much. I am a
man of hot temper. Words flew, I struck him. Then he slandered me
to the Abbess with all manner of vileness. My Lady Abbess when she
once believes the worst of a man has as much mercy as a hawk for a
sparrow. I was sorely and publicly flogged.”
“Flogged he was--by St. Stephen!” cried Adolf, plucking back the
fellow’s tattered shirt and disclosing a foul row of scarcely healed
welts; “but like enough for good causes.”
“Ay, call me liar an you will,” growled the fellow, snapping at his
red tangle of a beard; “a few sweet words more or less will not hurt,
when all’s to end on the halter.”
“Go on, rogue,” I enjoined; “why did that flogging make you take to
the Regenstein woods? Answer that.”
“Because my little farm was seized from me. The cattle were sold by
the Vogt, who grasped my poor worldly gear. With never a groschen in
my bag I was led to the verge of the abbey domain, and told ‘Begone;
if you come back, it won’t be whips for you, but gallows.’ So I
sought your woods. I was desperate, and had to keep from starving.”
“Umph! Have you a wife and children?”
“My wife is with the saints these ten years--God rest her well! I’ve
no sons. One daughter is honestly married to a smith in Wernigerode.
The other is a lay servitor at Quedlinburg abbey.”
“Is, you say?” I asked, feeling my pulses tingle. “Was she not
dismissed when you were disgraced?”
“No, she was kept; the abbess did not push her fury so far.”
“What’s your name, fellow?”
“Gunter, Countly Grace, Gunter of the Brook--for by it was my poor
farm.”
I rose abruptly from the judgment seat. I had reached a sudden
decision.
“Adolf,” I commanded, “conduct this man to my private chamber. I will
interrogate him apart from this rabble. Graf Moritz, do me the honor
to come with me.”
“But the gallows?” pressed Adolf in dismay.
“There’ll be no hanging at present. Let Rüdiger unrig them.”
“And your Lordship will be alone with this villain?” cried Adolf, as
if misdoubting his ears.
“Exactly so. Obey me.” My tone brooked no denying. To the immense
disappointment of the crowded hall I had the fellow into my own room,
and there with only Moritz for witness I drew out all I wished to
know. The case was not an unusual one: an honest, well-meaning man
paying for one burst of passion by being transformed into a lawless
knave. But I pass over his own personal story; it was what he had to
tell of his daughter who served at the abbey which I lit on as if his
words were pearls.
His daughter Trude had served for a number of years in the scullery
of the nuns of Quedlinburg. She was a “pious and honest maid,” her
father avowed, “in whom the Lady Abbess had great confidence, and
indeed it was for her sake, I think, I was merely flogged and driven
out, not hanged outright.” She knew all the convent gossip, what
young Sister Marthe said, and what old Kunigund said, besides picking
up a good many stories on her own account,--all of which tales,
mostly silly and harmless enough, she was wont to pass on to her
father when they met on Sundays and feast days. Very good. I led the
fellow through a long maze, he, poor wretch, never dreaming whither
all my talk ran, and instantly expecting Adolf and Rüdiger to come in
and march him straight to the gibbet.
“Now, fellow, recollect carefully.” I put all possible menace into
my tone. “Do not lie, or your eyes are gouged out and hot coals
inserted. Has your daughter ever spoken of a kinswoman of the abbess
who lately entered the convent?”
“The new Sister Ilsa?”
“Yes, scoundrel, that I think was the name. Now tell all this Trude
of yours had to say about that new Sister Ilsa.”
“Well, Sister Ilsa entered the convent in the winter. She had a very
short novitiate. A dispensation from the bishop or something like
that--your Countly Grace knows better than I. They said she was the
abbess’s niece, but I think My Lady showed her more rather than
less severity on that account. Bread and water all day in her cell,
for the most trivial error in telling her beads; and then to lie
all night in the cold chapel before the altar, her arms spread out
cross-fashion.”
“That is Aunt Theckla for a surety!” muttered Moritz in my ear.
“The poor thing would be all blue and pale from the cold until the
summer came. The nuns said she was very pious; no one more rigorous
with herself than she. She seemed very unhappy. Often Trude said she
looked to have been weeping. Once Sister Marthe said that there was
a long story about this nun; that her father had died a raging and
godless man; that she had once a lover who seemed a fine brave ritter
indeed; but who presently seemed like to prove as bad as her father.
So Sister Ilsa had sought the convent to pray for their souls, but
she was finding no peace, much less happiness. ‘She is not the kind
for the convent,’ Sister Marthe said; ‘still vows are vows, and so
she must make the best of it.’”
If Moritz had not given my elbow a mighty nudge, I would have cried
out some witless thing, even before that felon. As it was, I plucked
up strength to ask--my own lips twitching.
“How long since you heard this from Trude?”
“The day, Countly Grace, before I had the quarrel with the Vogt:
ah! mercy! pity! great lords. I was in great misery! I have tried
indeed to live honest!” Down he went on his knees, and began at once
bleating and bellowing. I clapped my hands: Adolf and two others
entered expectantly.
“Take this fellow out,” I commanded. “Take him to the dungeon. Keep
him snug on prison fare for the nonce. He is not to die.”
“Not to die!” faltered Adolf, almost dropping his tall halberd. “A
proven robber!”
“I have my reasons. Rüdiger can take down his rope.”
“But at least, your Grace will graciously order his nose to be cut
off flush with his face,” urged my lieutenant, still blinking.
“Not even that.” I drew money from my pouch. “Take these ten gulden
to Lampe and tell him these will salve his wound. Tell those cackling
geese in the hall that for high reasons of policy, too profound for
them to know, the execution is postponed. Now hale him out.”
“Oh! Countly Grace! Countly Grace!” Gunter was bawling in ecstacy,
“you give me life. You are sparing me! I am your slave forever! All
the Saints prosper you! May you--”
“Trot on, ape,” ordered Adolf with a kick, “and take that face of
yours down to the dungeon. Holy Wounds! But you could look the part
of the devil at the miracle play, and without a mask, either.”
Out they went, and Moritz turned to me, wondering.
“Mary and all angels!” he swore to me in his turn. “What are you
doing, Walter?”
I seized his hands and almost danced with him round the room. “Do you
not see? Through this fellow’s Trude I can learn all that happens at
the convent. I might even some day--”
He clapped his hand over my mouth.
“Hush!” he enjoined; “playing with a nun is playing with fire in a
magazine.”
“I know, I know.” I shot back to him, “I will be prudent. I will be
wise. But one thing I have which I had not an hour ago.”
“And what is that?” he demanded.
“A little hope!” I answered.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] A kind of business steward.
CHAPTER XIX
I REVISIT THE HOLY CITY
In June, 1519, even as Dr. Luther had been girding up his loins
for his disputation with Eck, the Seven Prince Electors, after
infinite intrigue and lying, bribe asking and bribe giving (from
which vile proceedings only Frederick of Saxony held nobly aloof),
chose Prince Charles of the Low Countries and Spain, as our German
Emperor,--‘Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire,’ ‘Cæsar, Pius, Felix,
semper Augustus’,--with I know not what other grandiloquent titles,
which the heralds, who made proclamation, gave to him. So now we had
a lad of nineteen to rule over us,--the heir of a great hereditary
possession. Good things were said of his precosity and wit, but many
a German shook his head over the choice. “There are a thousand things
to be done, and only this boy to do them. Please God he will cut
himself clear of his Flemish and Spanish advisers and know what the
Fatherland craves. But, praise heaven, at least we have not Francis,
the flashy Frenchman, to lord it in the Fatherland!”
While the election hung in the balance, while His Holiness and the
Monsignori at Rome doubted how the electoral pendulum would swing,
there had been abundant growlings and citations from Rome, but no
actual warfare against Luther. Now, I knew well enough, the Vatican
would furbish up its ponderous arsenal. Young ‘Kaiser Karl’ would
need the political support of the Papacy in his wide projects, and
that support could be had,--against a price, the sacrifice of Luther.
During the end of the winter of 1519 and 1520 I made another visit
to Wittenberg, to tell of my own life and thoughts and work; to
gather the comfort and inspiration I knew would come by a week of
contact with Dr. Luther, and to learn from his own lips the progress
of the contest that would now, I realized, in a few months march to
an issue. For myself I received hearty praise, and (where deserved)
brotherly criticism. Again he spoke to me those words so often in my
mind now, ‘He who will do the will shall know the doctrine.’ When I
told him of the report concerning Ilsa at Quedlinburg, he shook his
head sadly.
“Poor broken-winged dove. I could have told her all that years ago.
Lucky it is, hers is a strait convent, and not one of those places
where the nuns are called ‘pretty poppets.’ Then were her state
infinitely worse. But we shall see what we shall see, and wait God’s
good time.”
“I am trying,” I replied; “but I cannot keep from thinking.”
“Thoughts are free from taxes,” he said with a laugh and shrug, and
changed the subject.
Oh, the industry of the man! Correspondence now with almost every
learned doctor in Germany: vast praise: vast blame. Doubts, fears,
questionings, encouragement blown in upon him every day--even from
foreign lands. Let others write the story of the great debate.
Time fails me to tell more than my personal history. I found Dr.
Luther encouraged by nearly all the younger scholars and thinkers of
Germany, although chided by many of the elder, and somewhat coldly
frowned upon by the great Erasmus, who drew back instinctively at
the mere hinting of “battle.” And always amid all these cares Dr.
Luther was busy with pamphlet after pamphlet, “Expositions of the
Lord’s Prayer for Simple Laymen,” and many more, while the Wittenberg
printing-press kept clanging, clanging--flinging his words to all
Germany.
But the warfare could not rest with hard words and ink spilling. We
all knew that, although we seldom talked of certain eventualities.
Often as I stood in the little study, leaning against the green-tiled
stove, and watched Luther’s busy quill racing over the paper, and his
tonsured head bowing at his task, my sight would fade. I could see
that which, in a short year, might be witnessed--a hooting mob in
some strange city, a roaring bale-fire, and within it the friar of
Wittenberg. Far, far beyond any question of indulgences had passed
the struggle now,--beyond any formal question of Papal prerogative,
even. Since the Leipzig dispute, all the teachings of the Church from
the day of St. Paul seemed laid under ruthless scrutiny. What might
issue forth neither Dr. Luther, I, nor any man knew. We only knew
something was afoot,--fearful, wonderful,--the like whereof had not
been for nigh fifteen centuries.
At Rome I learned was Eck, and it took no wiseacre to divine his
purpose. A letter from a faithful Italian correspondent, that reached
me at the Regenstein soon after my return, put forth the matter
clearly.
“Everybody now talks about your Luther. They praise him sometimes,
much as one praises the craft of the devil. The friars’ party is
scolding the Pope under breath for not ‘quenching the flames’ at
the outset instead of wasting his time with hunts, artists, poets,
and diplomats. Eck is filling Rome with his clamors. He claims to
know Germany, and says that though many may now cry up Luther, none
will dare fight and die for him when he is once fairly branded as
‘heretic.’ He urges instant action. If it were not that all state
processes here at Rome are slow in coming as the Greek calends he
would have secured the bull of formal and final excommunication
already. As it is, the issue will probably occur ere very long.
_Then_ we shall indeed discover whether under all your German smoke
there indeed lurk a few sparks of fire, as you try to make me
believe.”
The letter was of enough import to make me exceeding thoughtful.
Heart and soul, hand and fortune, I was enlisted in Luther’s cause.
My letters in his behalf to Rome had been to the very limit of
vehemence. If thus far I had done little for him in Germany, it
was because in Germany he had seemed right able to take care of
himself. But now that the Vatican was preparing its ultimatum I
began to consider whether my sole duty was to await passively in
the Regenstein what might befall the man whom I called more than
ever brother, and also prophet. For better than most mortals I knew
the difficulty Leo de’ Medici labored under at Rome in apprehending
the true state of Germany,--how a stroke at Luther might not mean
the crushing of a heretic, but the enkindling of a nation--the
precipitation of religious war, beside which the memory of the old
Hussite wars would fade as empty dreams. Could I get the ear of Leo
for this? Could I persuade him not to believe Eck: not to put the
worst possible inference upon Luther’s words which might be explained
as ill-considered or rash? In short, could I for once teach the
Monsignori of the Vatican that they had blundered, and must hold out
the olive branch with what grace they might? None realized the odds
against me more clearly than myself. The chances were all failure.
The man who went to Rome to plead the cause of the heretic might
forfeit all past favor: might possibly take the heretic’s place
himself. But I was not living unto myself now,--please God I would
not die unto myself. I made my resolve.
In March I wrote to Luther announcing my intention of visiting Rome,
travelling rapidly, and returning to the North as soon as possible.
The two years of my exile from Rome had long expired; I was informed
His Holiness expressed surprise at my failure to return; I believed I
could get at least one fair audience touching the cause I had so at
heart, and if blessings should light on the peacemakers, blessings
then should be mine.
I received a characteristic reply from Wittenberg; words I later
learned Luther used in another letter to Dr. Spalatin, Elector
Frederick’s confessor. After thanking me heartily, he expressed no
confidence in the success of my mission. He expected only anathemas
and wars. “But I commit everything to God, and give up my bark to
the winds and the waves. The battle is the Lord’s. For do you think
by _peace_ Christ will advance His cause? I fear not. Has not He
himself--have not all the martyrs--poured out their blood in the
combat?” Then at the end he told how he would pray for me night and
morning, as I fared on the long, long way.
The day after this letter came I called in Andrea, very suddenly.
“Andrea, make ready quickly. A long journey.”
“Eccellenza goes again to Wittenberg?”
“To Rome.”
The fellow almost swooned with joy. Then clapped his hands, sung,
danced.
“Italy, Italy. Returning to the sunlight! Santa Maria, what a blessed
day!”
“Do not exult too much. I shall not stay there. I go to plead with
His Holiness in behalf of Dr. Luther. I must travel with as small a
train, and as great speed as possible. I leave preparation to you.
You understand?”
“To me, _si_! Eccellenza. I am proud of the honor. Am I not a
Sienese, and when were they wanting?”
And he fulfilled his word. At dawn the next morning, after a very
brief farewell with Moritz, I rode out of the Regenstein, with
only Andrea and two other attendants. Rome was not to condemn the
Wittenberg friar without one friend to plead his cause.
* * * * *
This is not a tale of far travel. My flight through Germany,
Switzerland, and Lombardy was almost as fast as we could relay our
horses. At Genoa I took a local fulcenna for Civita Vecchia, and
had a prompt and prosperous voyage. One evening we sighted what was
feared to be a Barbary corsair, and we had chilly thoughts of a
transport to Tunis and a round ransom; but the stiff breeze helped us
to leave the strange sail behind. On landing, an easy stage brought
us to Rome. Three years, nearly, since I had quitted it, and yet
exceeding familiar:--the throngs of monks and clerics on the streets,
the gay habits and uniforms on the Corso, the venerable ruins, the
passing now and again of a cardinal’s coach of state, the streets of
sombre stucco-fronted palazzi. Only the piers of the new San Pietro
had risen a little higher, and I was told Raffaelo (who had just
died) had completed still more masterpieces.
I was in Rome on no pleasure trip, but once there I had to survey the
field ere acting. The Forlis, luckily, were on embassy in France, or
I should have hesitated more about returning to Italy; but now since
I had kept my former apartments I made myself quite at home, and
Andrea was nigh beside himself with glee when he recognized them. As
quickly as possible also I sent for my old tailor and had three suits
of the latest fashion prepared, while Andrea hired the necessary
horses and servants that I might affect all my old elegance.
Imagine me, then, breaking in upon my old companions. For three days
I ran from palazzo to palazzo, to be met with effusive greetings
and gossip at every hand. The Pope was near the city at his hunting
lodge, and, I was assured, had asked repeatedly wherefore I did not
return (my sentence having expired) to Rome. My business at the court
I concealed for the nonce under polite talk about “private affairs.”
In a few days I had learned all that I wished to know, and could take
action.
* * * * *
The Bull had not yet been signed by the Pope, although cast in its
final form. A long wrangle among the Latinists as to its precise
verbiage had delayed matters. “Its language, as well as its
orthodoxy, must be beyond reproach.” Eck and his Dominicans had
clamored for instant anathemas, but a moderate party had insisted
that Luther be given a last interval of sixty days wherein to recant.
What I must do, I must do quickly. I resolved to request an interview
with the Pope at his hunting lodge, and to this end I visited the
Secretary of State, the Cardinale di Frascati.
I knew the illustrious prelate well, and he was in an amiable mood
when they ushered me into his private camera. It was one of the
first exceeding hot days. His Eminence lounged in a very informal
dressing-gown upon a wicker chair. The windows were filled with linen
in lieu of glass, and the tiled floor had just been sprinkled with
water.
“Ah! my dear Gualtiero, for I renew the old familiarity,” he began,
my wish explained, “I am sure an interview can be arranged. His
Holiness will rejoice to see you. But may I crave your motive?”
“Eminenza,” I replied, with premeditated boldness, “I understand the
reputation I have left in Rome.”
“You ought, you mad fellow,” he answered, laughing.
“I fear therefore what I shall say will be accounted a merry but
ill-timed jest. Do me the favor to consider me wholly in earnest.”
“Alas!” quoth he, mopping his brow; “I had hoped you came merely with
pleasant gossip; but pray state this dreadfully serious business.”
“Has your Eminence heard that I have written to Rome in behalf of the
alleged heretic Luther?”
“It was a most cleverly sustained witticism. You played the
_advocatus diaboli_ to perfection.”
“I may well have done so. I was in earnest.”
The Cardinal dropped his handkerchief, and leaned back, staring at me.
“You seriously argue the case of that friar? that child of perdition,
foe of the Church, of the spawn of Arius and Hus? You, whose
frivolities are notorious?” I nodded. “Jupiter and all gods! Your
reasons?”
“Very simple ones. Luther is a saint. He who raises a hand against
him is accursed even as the Jews who stoned the kneeling Stephen.”
He clasped his hands over his head. “Are my ears betraying me? _You_
actually try to quote Scripture? Pray, when have you been seized with
such miraculous piety?”
I took a step nearer to his chair.
“Hearken, Eminenza. I am not here to justify myself, but another. But
this I will say for myself; I am not what I was once. I have seen,
felt, suffered. I am no longer my old vain, idling, self-pleasing
self. I have met in Germany a Man. And that Man has taught me that I
at least have a work to do, and a life to live ere I render back my
life and talents to God. It is in behalf of that Man I am in Rome,
for his name is Martin Luther.”
He beckoned for me to cease, but I would not.
“That Martin Luther has been denounced and anathematized here I know
full well. He has not sought this quarrel. I know the beginning.
The mad blasphemies of Tetzel which he denounced have been since
denounced by many an honest Papalist. But because he dared to tie up
the Pope’s and the Archbishop of Mainz’s dear money bags countless
slanders were cast against his name. He is honest. He has sought
diligently to justify himself. In that search he was perforce driven
by his opponents to question many things beside the Indulgences. For
this he was branded as ‘heretic.’ If it be heresy to seek earnestly
for truth, then heretic he is, and so am I.”
“_Pax!_” commanded the Cardinal, coloring slightly. “We are indeed in
a noble argument. You forget your Luther had an ample opportunity to
recant before Caïetanus, and scoffed at all the legate’s benignity.”
“A chance to recant if wrong, yes! But not to justify himself if in
the right.”
“How could he be in the right?” quoth His Eminence, with dignity;
“the Church has spoken against him.”
I had learned somewhat from my master of the value of boldness.
“But if the Church be wrong, so much the worse for the Church.”
Frascati crossed himself in horror.
“That is blasphemous, even from you, Gualtiero. Are you turned so mad
up there in the North that you expect to convince His Holiness and
the whole Curia by arguments like this?”
“Not in the least.”
“Then explain, for heaven’s sake.”
“I expect to tell His Holiness what no one yet has evidently dared
to tell him. I would tell him that it is not with Martin Luther he
deals, but with all Germany,--yes, and I dare swear with other lands,
too; or, as God rules above us, I see such a bloody cleaving and
sorrow to the Church as will make the old ‘Babylonish Captivity’ and
the ‘Great Schism,’ and all the other sore troubles, but as a tale
that is told.”
The Cardinal rose with a kind of benignity, and laid his hand upon my
shoulder.
“Impossible, Gualtiero; impossible. How can His Holiness be
misinformed? I dare swear that you are crazed. You have read too
much Seneca and Epictetus. Try Euripides and Propertius. If it will
make you happier, you shall see the Pope to-morrow, but it will do
as much good as a bucket can to fill the sea. This hot weather has
distracted you. Let us sit and talk of pleasanter matters,--the
negotiations as to the new Spanish bishoprics, for instance. Try
a little of this wine from my own estate, it is very good for
afflictions of the head. What a mistake ever to let you go North!”
I spent an hour with him. I went away realizing clearly the probable
futility of my mission. My temptation was to turn back without
pressing for the Papal interview. But I was of the Regenstein
ritters. It was better to fail, to perish, than to flee away.
CHAPTER XX
THE HOLY FATHER ORDAINS
Despite adverse omens, I omitted no precaution to improve my chances.
I learned that the Bull against Luther was being cast in final shape
by Cardinal Accolti after a contest with Cardinal Pucci, both jealous
of their own skill as Latinists. The document might go to Leo at any
moment for final action. I therefore at once despatched a messenger
to the Pope’s hunting lodge, La Magliana (six miles up the Tiber)
requesting an immediate audience. As a token of loyalty I sent also
a manuscript of the Third Philippic of Demosthenes, which I had
purchased at Genoa, and which contained at least five paragraphs
lacking in the best copy in the Vatican. I was rewarded by a speedy
reply that “His Holiness would graciously see me to-morrow at noon in
the interval between the morning and afternoon hunting.”
In dealing with Leo, I at least understood my man. Any high moral
appeal would be valueless, not because he was in any sense immoral or
evil loving, but because he was essentially a temporal politician,
despite a large admixture of the tastes of an æsthete. To make this
clever, urbane, pleasure-loving son of Lorenzo the Magnificent
comprehend the soul-searchings of Luther was a task beyond angels.
Yet I believed Leo had his approachable side. “Let us then enjoy this
Papacy, seeing that God has given it to us” had been his alleged
remark when told of his election: and if only I could convince the
very secular and ambitious prince that banning Luther was pouring oil
on a truly great political flame, he might still be turned aside to
conciliation. This seemed my only chance.
In the morning I let Andrea dress me with the informal elegance
befitting an informal interview.
“And my own livery to-day, Eccellenza?” he asked.
“None at all,” I answered, and then even as his face lengthened and
protests began, I cast a glance about to be sure my other valets were
absent. “Andrea,” I continued, a hand on his shoulder, “you will have
other work. Either your master returns to you to-night the happiest
man in Italy, or he will return wholly defeated. Yet not defeated
only: every Dominican will be crying, ‘To San Angelo with him.’ Nay,
they may think it a case for Orlando the Moor.[9] For it is no light
thing which I risk this day. You will have ready fast horses, a few
trusty varlets, travel money, passports, everything needful for a
swift journey, so that I may leave Rome most suddenly before the
Monsignori can form too many schemes against me. You understand?”
“_Si, si_, Eccellenza!”
He bowed so low I could see his nose sticking betwixt his legs. I
knew I needed to say nothing more to him. Leaving him therefore to
care for all I had suggested, I took my way out to La Magliana.
It was a pleasant ride on the Via Campana, some six miles along the
right bank of the Tiber. I found that I was not alone in seeking an
audience with His Holiness. To my surprise I fell in with no less
a personage than the Archbishop of Bari, the original cause of all
my adventures. I eyed him awkwardly for a moment, but he veiled his
biretta affably, and drew his palfrey beside mine whilst our men
cantered behind.
“Believe me, illustrious conte,” he declared, “I have long since
realized who was responsible for that little adventure three years
ago--and--Santa Maria!--the prebend the Pope gave me then has more
than paid for the shock to my feelings. Inasmuch as I understand you
are no longer friendly with Forli, _certamente_ you are again my very
good friend.”
So we chatted amiably and I was pleased indeed to learn that the game
had been very abundant of late, for bad hunting meant that the Pope
would be in most atrocious humor. “Indeed,” Bari assured me, “only
‘two cross-bows’ this season can bring in a cartload of game--stags
and deer, as well as pheasants and hares. His Holiness will be
delighted to grant us all kinds of favors, the more so as he will be
glad of our company as a foil to the sombre fellow who went out to
him earlier in the day.”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Why, Sylvestro Priario the Censor, to be sure. He carries the final
draught of the Bull against Luther the Heretic.”
“But the Pope can only consent to that in the full consistory.”
“Of course. The formal consent then, but the informal consent,
authorizing the notaries to have the document engrossed for the
regular sealing and publishing--that can be given to-day; probably
this noon before we depart. Ah! well--it was high time an end was
made to the pestilent fellow. I presume you heard quite a little of
him in Germany.”
I fear my answer was evasive, and my whole conversation from this
point stupid and wandering. I was letting my thoughts stray far
indeed from that venerable river road in the green Italian country. I
was thinking how that noon Leo de’ Medici, in the intervals betwixt
the hunting, was like to take that action which might affect the
lives, thoughts, souls of generations yet unborn; might set cities
flaming, armies marching; might array king against king, and nation
against nation. And all the while up in the far dome of the sky the
larks were singing, and the laughing, barefoot peasant maids went by,
driving on their sheep and tossing their bright cloaks to catch the
eyes of our ogling serving-men.
* * * * *
I allowed Bari to go first to the audience, and he soon came out
smiling, informing me that His Holiness was in excellent humor,
having run down a notably tall stag that morning. “He gave me the
abbey for my cousin almost before the words got out of my mouth!”
he reported. And so after brief interval, the scraping and bowing
gentleman-usher conducted me in, and I was again before the Pope of
Christendom.
The room was a gracefully decorated, airy apartment, as became a
hunting lodge. Perfumed air from the gardens blew in at the large
open windows. The frescoes on the wall were by Giulio Romano,--nymphs
and sea-gods on azure waves, the postures a little free, but not
really scandalous. A polite buzz was proceeding from a little group
of monsignori and secular noblemen who were standing around, all in
suitable hunting costume. Two or three handsome pages were moving to
and fro around a small, linen-covered table. In a high armchair, his
plate before him, eating heartily, sat Leo de’ Medici. The years had
added to his corpulency and the heaviness of his features. He wore
a gray Flemish jacket and high leather huntsmen’s boots; a Spanish
sombrero and a boar spear lay on the taboret beside him. As he looked
up, I fell on both knees dutifully, and the usher’s announcement
sounded.
“His Excellency the Conte di Palaestro.”
I was considering whether to approach and kiss the Pope’s hunting
boots, when His Holiness himself thrust back the armchair in rising.
A broad smile overspread his face. “Welcome, Gualtiero!” I heard his
deep voice saying, and he did me the singular honor of extending his
ring to be kissed, instead of advancing a foot.
As I rose from my salute, he seized my hands warmly, and looked about
the room with all the rapture of a lad greeting a long lost boon
companion.
“So long! So very long! And at last you are back. How I have missed
you. How often I have execrated Forli and Rocca for involving you in
that affair. I had thought of summoning you back to Rome earlier,
but I knew that you would come of yourself. I was very sure of it.
What a fortunate day! A great stag this morning, and now Gualtiero di
Palaestro to join in the hunt this afternoon. Surely I say a lucky
day!”
“If I may wax poetical,” I replied, in my best Latin, releasing my
hands and with another deep reverence, “the honor and fair fortune
is entirely my own. Do I not see again Sol, the illuminer of the
Earth, the terrestrial Apollo who sheds clear beams on mortal souls
groping in their darkness, or if my metaphor be not too forced, do I
not now reverence ‘Leo,’ who is no less the king of the kings of the
world, than the four-footed ‘Leo’ is the king of beasts? I cry your
Holiness’s judgment upon my figures of speech.”
“Excellent, Gualtiero, excellent,” cried the Pope, sinking back into
the chair which the pages promptly thrust again beside the table.
“Your three years in that barbarous North have not ruined your
excellent Latinity. After all”--this between large mouthfuls of his
favorite peacock sausages--“your Germans are not so desperate. Your
Magister Johann Eck, now in Rome, can speak very fair Latin--though a
somewhat greasy, unkempt creature himself. But why talk of Germany,
Gualtiero, why of Germany? _Peste!_ What with the troubles I’ve been
in touching the election of the Emperor (heaven grant he play me fair
as to my getting Ferrara!) and this heretic friar, I get no sleep
nights. I grow thin, Gualtiero; yes, thin, though my chamberlains
will not have it so, and pretend my garments show I am stouter. But
away with such trifles now. You have come on a noble hunting day.
I’m sure Cardinal Cornaro will lend you one of his horses for the
afternoon, if your steed isn’t suitable. And now while I eat you
shall tell me how you have managed to pass three years away from
Rome.”
Thus bidden, I narrated to the Pope what I truthfully could of my
doings in the North without trenching upon the topic of Luther, or
the affair of Ilsa, and making much of the problems connected with my
Regenstein vassals. I was hopeful the matter of the Bulls against the
heretic would not be laid before Leo ere evening, and as a favored
guest at the hunt I promised myself a thousand opportunities of
opening the ticklish subject during the afternoon, when of a sudden I
was interrupted.
Into the gay, informal company, like a shadow, intruded the black
gown of a sombre figure I knew overwell--Sylvestro Priario the
Censor. In his hand was a paper packet. With a gesture to an usher
he moved to the table and stood silent, like a gloomy pillar, until
he caught the Pope’s eye; then proffered a silent genuflection and
held out the document. Leo motioned for me to cease, and received the
paper, beckoning simultaneously for writing materials.
“A moment, only a moment, Gualtiero. Then you may continue your
fascinating adventures. You see how business pursues me even hither.
I am obliged to authenticate briefs and the like even on hunt days.
Was ever a pontiff so persecuted? Santa Maria--those saintly old
Popes who fed the Colosseum panthers were better off! Well--give me
the pen. Do I sign here?”
I felt the blood rush into my face. I knew my heart was beating
wildly. I had at least expected a chance to present my problem
fairly, and without too great prejudice. But the crisis was none of
my making. I must do what I could. I took a step nearer the table.
My eye met the dark eye of Priario, and instinctively we exchanged
hostile glances.
“Your Holiness,” I said, “may I do a very bold and uncourtly thing?
May I requite the marked graciousness you have just displayed to me
by asking a most impertinent question,--may I know the nature of this
paper presented by Monsignore Priario?”
The Pope looked up, surprised. One or two courtiers glanced at me
curiously. I had indeed done something beyond all precedent.
“Why, indeed, Gualtiero, you strange fellow,” rejoined His Holiness;
“this is the new Bull _Exsurge Domine_ against that firebrand Luther.
I must sign it that it may be presented in full Consistory in a few
days for ratification. Good heavens, man--why do you look at me thus
strangely? Have you taken poison?”
I fell on my knees before the Pope’s chair. I did my best to control
my voice.
“Hear me, your Holiness. What I ask is surprising and beyond all
precedent, yet for the Pope’s own sake do I ask it. For many reasons
I beg your Holiness not to assent to this Bull until I have been
heard to the contrary. It was for this very boon that I begged for an
audience.”
A kind of jar, of mental shock, seemed passing around the chamber.
The Pope looked at me in such amazement it was manifest he did not
understand all that I had said. Only the hollow hard tones of Priario
broke the momentary silence.
“His Holiness can hardly delay the notaries longer. The bull has been
drafted with the uttermost care, and delayed too much already. The
Conte di Palaestro certainly cannot claim the right to intervene in a
matter strictly of theology.”
The voice of the Censor broke the spell upon me. I rose. With _him_ I
could bandy words.
“Well said, Monsignore,” I retorted, leaving Leo to recover his
poise; “I intervene not in theology, but this is a matter of most
mundane politics. Sorely disloyal were I to His Holiness, forgetful
of all the favors showered by the Popes on the House of Palaestro, if
I held my peace, when rash theologians prepare such temporal woe for
the Holy See.”
“Rash theologians?” interposed Priario. “Does the Conte call them
‘rash’ and deny the case one of theology when this Luther is clearly
convicted of forty-one damnable theological errors, and of seducing
his countrymen to beliefs worthy of Moslem infidels?”
“I argue not for his opinions, pious Sir,” said I, standing
haughtily, “though I have heard learned doctors commend them. I speak
to His Holiness on other matters. Were Luther’s errors tenfold, still
would I ask this hearing.”
“Blessed San Paolo!” ejaculated the pontiff, still gazing on me,
bewildered; “are you returned just to set my court by the ears? You
and the Censor eye each other like wolves.”
“I have nothing against Monsignori,” I responded respectfully,
“but much against your Holiness’s ill-informed and precipitate
councillors.”
“Precipitate?” cried the Pope. “Have we not deliberated informally
and in Consistory until I am weary and ill? Your German Eck, and
all the Italians--all with their jangling counsels? Do you think
the drying up of my German revenues is so delightful that I would
draw out the matter longer? Ask a new lordship for Palaestro; a
chamberlainship at court; anything in reason. But no more of this
accursed friar!”
“Your Holiness,” I let a little steel ring in my voice, “when the
French were in the land, and Charles VIII thundered on to Rome, my
Italian grandfather held our castle fast for St. Peter. My German
father died at Ravenna fighting the Pope’s battle. My sword has ever
been at your Holiness’s summons. Therefore I have a right to speak
to the Pope in this high matter, despite the frowns of Monsignore
Priario.”
Leo laid down his pen. “Proceed,” he commanded.
He twirled his thumbs and moved uneasily. Clearly he was not pleased
at me, but I persisted.
“Your Holiness: you will graciously recall that through no volition
of my own I was forced to return to my paternal estates in Germany.
In Germany I was suffered to witness the very birth-pangs of this
controversy that now vexes the Holy See. I beheld the doings of
Tetzel, and if ever a robber clutched for money, he was that
robber.” Next, briefly as I might, I told how Luther was drawn into
the great debate, and how he had acted from the purest of motives,
concluding, “then the storm spread. Luther is human. He has met
attack with attack. Confronted with anathemas where he had expected
comfort, what wonder he has denounced many things--even the Pope’s
prerogative--when your Holiness, ignorant of the true situation, has
been unable to silence the braying tongues of angry busybodies.”
“A word,” interposed the darkly frowning Priario; “let me ask the
Conte this: even conceding, what is impossible, that Tetzel were
indeed a most indiscreet, nay objectionable, man, if this friar were
truly a devout son of the Church, would he not rather ‘cover the
nakedness of his Mother’--as commends the Scripture, and endure in
silence, than blazon abroad this great scandal to the undermining of
faith and the confounding of the pious laity?”
“If your question needs an answer, Monsignore,” I rejoined with
acidity, “you can know best whether St. Peter Damiani, Pope Gregory
VII otherwise called Hildebrand, and St. Bernard of Clairvaux
endured in silence the evils they saw rending the Church? Do
Christians so ill then to venerate these saints?”
The Pope had been following me keenly. The thrust of my answer was
not lost to him. His face lighted as Priario winced, and his tone was
more friendly.
“A good arrow, Gualtiero. You always were clever in argument,
although to hear _you_ wage war for this fellow makes me misdoubt my
ears! But you said you had no theological reasons for me, but only
worldly ones--how is that?”
“Your Holiness is good to correct me. I am not here to excuse
Martin Luther. I am here to say this,--I have been in Germany
now many months. I have met men and women of all ranks and
conditions,--princes, nobles, burghers, peasants, as well as clergy
and monks. Your Holiness has been ill-served by your agents and
newsmongers. A spirit of hostility against the Holy See exists in
Germany that I fear the Pope’s intimates have been too selfish
courtiers to report to him truly.”
“Good God!” ejaculated Leo, flushing, “do you tell me I am so hated!
Wherein have I oppressed the Germans, pray? I surely sent the ‘Golden
Rose’ to the Elector of Saxony. Ungrateful fellow not to surrender
Luther in return for it!”
“Your Holiness is not hated personally. I have heard you called ‘a
lamb in the midst of wolves.’ But the hatred against the Holy See,
against the system of Papal Revenues, the disposition of Church
offices in Germany by the Pope’s intimates, against many other things
connected with Rome, is blown up very fierce. I have heard many
Germans assert it were time to cast off allegiance to Rome altogether
and set up a national church for themselves.”
The Pope’s thick lips twitched, Priario’s face grew black as
thunder, and he broke out with: “Santa Maria! That is schism,
blasphemy, and heresy all in one. Do we live again in the days of
Arius and Donatus?”
“These are not pleasant words, your Holiness, not the words of a
servant craving your high favor,” I drove on desperately, “but the
words of a servant who speaks sober truth. The whole land of Germany
is ready to rise against the Church and the Holy See even as a
hundred years ago Bohemia rose, only the blaze will be twenty-fold
hotter, even as Germany is greater than Bohemia.”
“You exaggerate, Gualtiero,” replied Leo, trying strenuously, it
seemed, to recover his easy poise, and appear calm. “I’m sure you
exaggerate. It is true Miltitz and Caïetanus have written somewhat
of a misguided feeling in this heretic’s favor, but nothing like
to this. You are bewitched, Gualtiero. You always were a fellow
of enthusiasms and fancies. A few days in the Trastevere with the
pleasant donnas there will cool your brain and make you think better
of yourself--”
I fear I cut the Pope short with an impatient gesture.
“I am aware, your Holiness,” I declared, “how little my past life
gives weight to my present mission. Yet this one thing I entreat.
Postpone signing this paper. Give me formal audience to-night. Hear
me with that calm wise judgment which makes Leo de’ Medici honored
and respected as wise, no less than holy, throughout the world.
You will then see that I talk no folly when I urge, ‘delay, do not
enkindle all Germany, which is ready to rise in behalf of this
friar.’”
“Do you talk indeed seriously, Gualtiero,” said the Pope, looking at
me shrewdly.
“By the soul of my father and mother I do.”
“I do not like it,” repeated Leo, “I do not like it. The fellow has
had every consideration. I remember what Caïetanus wrote to Rome:
‘I will argue no more with that beast. Those eyes of his are too
deep-set in his head, and his looks have too much meaning in them.’
He is clearly a heretic. If I spare him now, all Rome will laugh at
me.”
“A less serious calamity, your Holiness,” I ventured, “than to
anathematize him, and have the anathema end in empty thunder, amid a
great German schism.”
Leo again knotted his fingers painfully. He was manifestly in sore
doubt.
“Priario,” quoth he, after a pause, “what do you reply?”
The legalist’s slow jaws opened sententiously. “Holy Father, the
Conte has argued of things impossible. Germany will not espouse the
cause of this desperate friar. If Germany did, her fate would become
a by-word and hissing through Christendom. As Vicar of Christ and
responsible to God for the feeding of His sheep, your duty is plain.
Let me cast it in a syllogism. _Prima_, the Church plainly teaches
heretics must burn. _Secunda_, Luther is manifestly a heretic.
_Conclusio_, Luther must burn! No other answer is possible.”
“Well, Gualtiero,” asked the Pope nervously, “what have you to say?”
“That Luther is not a heretic until the Pope formally declares him
such, and there are many reasons why this should not be done.”
“Ah, if I had not to decide! If I had not to decide!” Leo’s hesitancy
was painful to behold. The apartment was very still. Priario and
I stood silent. Then all unwarned a clear, sweet blast from a
huntsmen’s bugle pealed in at the casement. Long and silvery it
rang,--the summons for the grooms to prepare the horses for the
afternoon chase. As at an omen the Pope seized the pen. Even as the
notes died I saw him signing the packet. He cast it from him with a
sigh of relief.
“The hunt is waiting. I can dally no longer. Your arguments are
impossible. _Fiat justitia!_ Let the heretic burn.”
Priario’s eyes shot flames of triumph, as he caught up the paper.
“ROME HAS SPOKEN!” he proclaimed so that all could hear him.
“Rome has spoken,” I answered him, a little hoarsely, “but mark you,
Monsignore, Germany will speak to-morrow.”
* * * * *
That evening, just at sundown, I turned on my horse as my company
rode up the Janiculum. By the church of San Pietro in Montorio we
halted for a moment. Below me in the evening light I saw spread far
the Holy and Eternal City, the domes and towers of the churches,
the great mass of the Vatican, the tawny pile of the Colosseum, the
innumerable palaces, the monuments of eld; behind all, the Latin
hills and the deepening blue and gold of the Italian sky. My heart
was stirred. I knew I was leaving Rome and Italy forever.
Unhappy Leo, generous prince, munificent art patron, lover of poetry,
kindly master! How as secular king or Emperor would not thy name be
praised!
And thou, O Italia! Italia! thou with thy hot bright beauty, beauty
of sky and mountain and river, beauty of artist, of sculptor, of
poet, thou land set to lead the world up to the God-like, thou to
whom God hast given every grace, every talent! Over thee Christ must
have wept as over Jerusalem, having promised to cherish thee “even as
a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings,--and thou wouldest not.”
For thou, O! Italia, hast cast thy birthright away. Thou hast burned
Savonarola, thou hast endured the infamies of the Borgia, thou hast
humbled thy body to France and Spain, thy soul to the worldlings who
know not Christ. Therefore thy crown passes to the North, and men
perhaps shall come from far, to wander through thy storied cities,
to gaze on thy eloquent pictures, and to return, journeying away
from the pageant of thy fading past to their lands of the potent
present....
“Ride on, Andrea,” I commanded; “We are going back to the Regenstein.”
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The Pope’s executioner.
CHAPTER XXI
THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
I had failed, and I did not conceal from myself one reason why I had
failed. My past life and reputation had detracted from the weight of
my arguments, rather than strengthened them. That I was stark mad, or
perhaps the subject of demoniac possession was the firm impression (I
afterwards learned), of most of my friends in Rome. Letters informing
me as much and chiding me for “casting away the fairest chance that
ever a man had of winning the Pope’s favor,” overtook me whilst I
tarried at Vicenza, breaking my journey north. I had done well to
leave Rome suddenly, otherwise I would surely have been placed under
some restraint as a lunatic, whose folly took the form of heresy.
From Vicenza I wrote to my Venice bankers, bidding them to sell all
my estates and property in Italy to the first fair purchaser, and
remit me the proceeds against goldsmiths’ bills on Augsburg. With the
South I had finished. I dropped the title of Palaestro from my style,
and for better or worse I reëntered Germany as only the “Graf von
Regenstein.”
Even after so brief an absence I could see how the spirit of
excitement and enthusiasm for Luther had swelled. At Tübingen I met
the latest pamphlet by Ulrich von Hutten, the prince of the German
poets and Humanists, who had flown to the cause of Luther. His
pen had been surely dipped in gall. In his biting invectives were
embodied all the implacable hate which had been accumulating among
the men of the North against the Papacy.
Thus ran some of the “triads” in his _Vadiscus, or the Roman Trinity_.
“Three things abound in Rome; antiquities, poison, and ruins.
“Three things the Romans trade in; Christ, church offices, and
women.
“Three things everybody wants in Rome; short masses, good gold,
and a merry life.
“Three things are most praised yet are most rare in Rome;
devotion, faith, and innocence.
“Three things a pilgrim usually brings back from Rome; a soiled
conscience, a sick stomach, an empty purse.
“Three things are most feared in Rome; that the princes get
united, that the people begin to open their eyes, and that Rome’s
frauds come to light.
“Three things only can set Rome right; the determination of the
princes, the impatience of the people, and a host of Turks at her
doors.”
Here I have given only some of the mildest of his onslaughts.
Everybody was reading them. Everybody was believing them. Ploughboys
and tapsters stood around their more literate companions while they
conned aloud the latest pamphlet of the great debate. Glorious
Johannes Gutenberg, what a debt to thee and thy printer’s art, owe
all who love truth, justice, and the freeing of the human soul!
But Hutten had not spoken alone. Louder and clearer than his sounded
the voice from Wittenberg. Dr. Luther had anticipated the tardily
fashioned Bull. The Wittenberg printing-presses had scattered his
pamphlets to wide Germany. It was not to the learned Latinists that
he was speaking now. “The time for silence is gone, and the time
for speaking has come.” So in the words of Ecclesiastes, did the
Augustinian friar begin his “_Address to the German Nobility_,”--the
work that more than any other one book split Christendom into two
hostile camps. On July 20, 1520, just as I was reëntering Germany, it
was published. I met my first copy a few days later at Nuremberg. I
remember sitting up late into the night in the hot room of my inn to
finish it. In the morning I discovered that five other guests in the
selfsame inn had burned out their candles doing the like. Men could
talk of nothing else. I was not amazed to hear that very soon the
presses of Leipzig and Strassburg were busily reprinting.
I fear that if I had seen this book before seeking my audience with
Leo I would have turned back silent, and hazarding nothing. The
Wittenberg preacher had thrown away the scabbard. Such plainness
of speech had not been used against Rome since pagan emperors had
ceased to persecute. I leave to historians and theologians to tell
our children’s children of this book. Cold enough seems the invective
now, perhaps, as the fleeting years bring us German Protestants
slothful safety. But let it be read as I and a million others read
it,--with the great issue trembling on the brink, with the vast
fabric of the One Catholic Church and the One Vicar of Christ its
head tottering as to their fall,--old rooted ideas and beliefs,
things men had sucked in with their mothers’ milk, things men had
learned to believe as certainly as that the sun crosses the sky
toward the west, all these in short seemingly about to perish, and
_then_ perchance some of the glow and battle spirit might come, some
of the hope, fear, trembling, exaltation.
When I read that “the government of the Pope agrees with the
government of the apostles as well as Lucifer with Christ, hell with
heaven, night with day, and yet the Pope calls himself Christ’s
Vicar,” how could my memory fail to race back to the scenes just
witnessed at Rome? I read on and on, involuntarily nodding my head
with approval at even the fiercest invective. I was in no mood
to analyze the argument, to weigh the justice of each specific
criticism, of each suggested improvement in churchly discipline.
Nothing seemed spared. Saints’ days, masses for the dead, fasting,
begging pilgrimages, a thousand other things all were written down
in one fiery condemnation. And I smiled when I read “Heretics should
be overcome with books, not with fire, else the hangmen would be the
most learned doctors in the world, and there would be no need of
study.”
“Ah! Monsignori by the Tiber,” quoth I, “you will not be pleased to
have doctrines like that prevail.”
I remember casting the little book upon my pillow, and leaping up
with a laugh which awakened Andrea, who was sleeping on a pallet near
the door.
“Parried! Parried fairly,” I cried; “the sword of Rome is blunted on
the war-club of Germany. Behold the answer to the Papal Bull!”
* * * * *
A few more days of hard riding brought me to Wittenberg. The Elbe
country was all in the green and glory of ripening summer. A golden
haze filled the evening as I cantered over the plain and saw the
great tower of the Schloss-kirche looming ever higher. The honest
peasantry were trudging homeward from the fields. Their genial “Gruss
Gott” was welcome to my ears. All was peace and quietude. Rome
and its atmosphere of ostentatious elegance, suppressed intrigue,
polite scandal, pagan learning, almost faded from my ken. I rode up
the street of the little city. The lamps were being lighted. A few
students were trolling a hearty catch in one of the taverns. Leaving
the horses to be taken by my servants to the Castellan’s I went alone
and unannounced to the Augustinian convent. Familiarity made me enter
boldly. I mounted the stairway and threw open the door of Dr. Luther.
It was the same room that I had entered on an October evening almost
three years before,--the green tile stove, the solid chairs, the
great solid table. Only around the open lattice vines were climbing,
and I caught a heavy perfume from the convent gardens. The room was
very dim, but I stopped involuntarily as I crossed the threshold.
Dr. Luther was kneeling on the praying stool in one corner before a
tall, bare, wooden cross. He was praying softly aloud. I could not
catch the words, but stood awestruck, reverent, for no small time.
Presently he arose and turned. His bold, strong face seemed to shine
out upon me from the gloaming. Then of a sudden he saw me.
“Walter! _Ach! Liebe Gott!_”
He ran up to me, and almost crushed me with his powerful embrace.
Then he led me to the window-seat, and sat for some moments holding
both my hands, and pelting me with questions, so rapidly that I could
hardly answer one, ere he had discharged another.
“Oh! dear Lord Jesus Christ!” he cried at length, “what have I, poor
Brother Martin, done, that the noble Graf von Regenstein should run
this peril for my sake?”
“The peril was nothing, but I am come back a beaten soldier. I have
failed.”
“Yes, the Bull is issued. Good! Asses must bray, wolves howl, and
cardinals clamor for a poor German’s blood. Heaven has made it so. We
cannot complain.”
“Yet consider, dear Dr. Martin, who and what will save us now?”
“_Us?_ ‘Me’ you intended to say.”
“Us, for am I not one with you for life and for death?”
He was silent for an instant, then the grip on my hand was renewed.
“I have not deserved this. I cannot involve noble friends. The cause
will triumph, but very likely over my bones. It must not march over
yours also.”
“Dear Doctor,” said I, “it is you who have taught me to seek God and
to play the man and not the accursed fool. It is ‘us’ from this time
forth, though the Pope and every king rise up against us.”
“I have not deserved this. I thank you.” Then he reached to the table
and took up a Psalter. “Let me say the forty-sixth psalm.”
And in the gray twilight, with the book unopened before him, I heard
his deep voice roll out the majestic Latin of the Vulgate.
“_God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble._
_Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and
though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea._
_Though the waters therefore roar and be troubled: though the
mountains shake with the swelling thereof._
_The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered His
voice, the earth melted._
_Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the
heathen, I will be exalted in the earth._
_The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge._”
We sat silent again for a long time when he ceased. The daylight
faded. I shall no more forget that hour than I shall forget the scene
in the hunting lodge with Leo de’ Medici. A few years afterward
Luther was to cast this psalm into a hymn which Germany, and many
Christians afar, will verily sing forever, ‘_Ein feste Burg ist unser
Gott_.’...
Not that evening but in the clear warm morning sunlight was the final
issue drawn. I was there with Philip Melanchthon and Dr. Nicolaus
Amsdorf, a careful young theologian who had become Luther’s left
arm, if Melanchthon was his right. Dr. Martin had taken us on a walk
through the brilliant green country down toward the swirling Elbe. As
we walked out of the Eastern Gate two curly headed children, the boy
and girl of some parishioner, ran out to their stalwart friend and
nestled up by him, one on either side. They went along with us for a
while right merrily, talking about their school, their plays and how
their big sister was going to marry a Dessau hops-merchant. Luther
twined his big fingers in their long hair, pinched their red cheeks,
and asked innumerable questions. Then he told them a story of how the
night before he had dreamed of a bright and glorious city, wherein
were a hundred million boys and girls like themselves with marvellous
toys wherewith they never grew weary playing, and most beautiful
clothes which never grew soiled. And he had asked a holy man present
(he thought he was an angel), if the little folk of Wittenberg could
some day enter into that city too? “Yes,” had been the answer, “but
many years hence, after they were grown up, and only then if they
obeyed their parents, learned of their teachers, and loved the dear
God.”
Our artless companions listened open-eyed and trustful, ever asking
for “more stories,” until at last their attention was diverted by
some gorgeous butterflies, and away they went, hot on the chase. Dr.
Martin was looking after them very earnestly.
“Is it not written,” he asked, “‘of such is the kingdom of heaven,’
and again, ‘a little child shall lead them’? Good, they have led us
here! And if it is not God who has led us to-day through them, I am
sure it is not the devil. The devil is far too gloomy a gentleman to
show his ugly nose on so fine a day. Come, Philip; come, all of us.
Let us sit on these old timbers and deliberate, for we are not as the
old Persians, who took advice only in their cups.”
Before us was the rapid river, with here and there a brown,
lumber-laden barge drifting toward Magdeburg. A northern wind made
the open sun delightful. We sat for some time in a contemplative
mood, saying little. At last Dr. Luther broke the silence.
“Hearken, noble and learned friends of a poor and simple friar.
Here I am told that a Bull has been fashioned against me at Rome. A
Bull very terrible, such as princes and kings might well quake to
have launched against them, let alone the son of poor Hans Luther,
the miner of Eisleben. That being the case, if I am to save soul and
body, tell me what I am to do, having neither soldiers nor gulden to
avoid the onslaught?”
The words were lightly said, but I knew not so lightly meant. It was
for no mere summer stroll we had been taken out that day. Amsdorf,
ever cautious, began dryly.
“If you, dear Doctor, would indeed have sound council, you should
assemble all your learned and discreet Wittenberg friends. We lack
alike in years and wisdom.”
But Luther laughed with a kind of irony. “A pest on learned and
discreet friends! I will have friends who are bold and lusty, but not
waxed over wise. A council of graybeards will buzz out as much wisdom
as a wasps’ nest. Three councillors suffice for many princes, and
they shall suffice for me. What think you, Philip?”
Melanchthon stroked his thin beard.
“I was reflecting upon what the Roman Hadrian said upon his
death-bed, if Cassius Dio reports him aright, ‘Many physicians are
the Emperor’s death.’ In numbers we are sufficient, but in sound
judgment--”
“Away with your classic anecdotes. We are not in the lecture hall. I
have led you here for reasonable council, and where is a better place
for it than under God’s blue heaven, where He can see and hear if all
we say and think is aright? For no light matter methinks to go the
road which we have undertaken. And if we are to traverse it, let it
not be as blindfolded oxen goaded to the butcher.”
“Proceed,” we said together.
“Then let the king lay matters before his council. Our noble Walter
von Regenstein here tells me, what is beyond peradventure true, that
a Papal Bull has been prepared and approved, and since his departure
from Italy it has been beyond doubt officially published. It declares
me a heretic, and with me all my adherents and favorers. It orders
the burning of my books. Rumor says that I and my friends are given
sixty days wherein to recant our errors and to burn our books; in
other words, to surrender up our castle with even the innermost keep.
Failing thereof we are cut off as ‘withered branches not abiding in
Christ,’ and to endure that law concerning heretics which has been
from ages provided,--the tenor whereof you know right well. Good,
then, my noble masters; on which horn of the dilemma shall I sit
down? For I am not the first honest monk to whom the paternal father
at Rome has spoken, ‘Turn or burn.’”
He looked from Amsdorf to Melanchthon, from him to me. We looked
sheepishly upon the water. There was nothing hesitant in Luther’s
tone or manner, but we were reluctant to speak.
“Dear Doctor,” at last I said, with a smile, “after the trumpet blast
of your last pamphlet I do not see how we need seek for your answer.”
“Ah, Walter,” he replied, “you are right. And yet I will tell
you--when I sit in my study among my books and think upon all the
evils of the world, I am beside myself. How fortunate it is I am not
God! If I were He, and had committed the government to my son, as He
to His Son, and these vile people were as disobedient to him as they
are now, I would knock the world in pieces. Therefore I would not
renounce the Pope and all his minions whilst in some fine frenzy at
my table, spitting out the fierce words with my ink. Not so. It is
here--where all is peace, calm, sunlight, friendship, that I must do
the deed. And no slight deed, I warrant.”
We all watched his face. He seemed to care little for what we said,
but much that we should see that he was perfectly calm and collected.
“Dear friends,” his deep voice continued, “so far have I gone, but
yet I can go back. Better men than Martin Luther have burned their
books at a Papal summons, and sung their palinode. And I: who am I to
set my weak wisdom against all the learned men, the sainted doctors
and sages who have confirmed the power of Rome?”
“Who are you?” cried I, while Melanchthon affectionately closed both
his delicate hands around one of his master’s great ones. “You are
a prophet and saint, beside whom Aquinas and Albertus Magnus are
unworthy to breathe the same air. Your word is truth. You cannot
fail, or God fails with you!”
“Hear how the dear Graf Walter proves himself the adept courtier and
flatterer, Philip,” responded Dr. Martin. “He would make me think I
was a prince or a cardinal if he could. But he speaks in one thing
the truth. Of late I have come to know how it was that the apostle
wrote, ‘It is no more I that live, but Christ Jesus which liveth in
me.’ Oh! blessed assurance, such as no Pope can give, with all his
power from his high throne. For thanks to God’s word I am possessed
by His Truth, and after that--what can man do unto me?”
“Dr. Luther,” said Melanchthon slowly, “you know that it is yours to
speak, it is ours to follow. Long since you have learned all that.”
The Augustinian’s spare form grew straighter as he sat. His hands
pressed hard upon his knees, but his voice was calm when he answered
us.
“Hear, then, comrades and beloved. The Church wherein I have been
born and bred, the Pope whom I have been taught to reverence--these
have cast me off, because I have been obedient to the voice of God.
Graf Walter here, on the night of the theses, warned me of this.
I would believe nothing. How foolish of me--yet how well Heaven
ordered it! For if I had taken fright then, how could I have learned
now what manner of things the Pope and Rome are? Whether they get my
body for the fire, whether an angel preserves me, matters little.
For I am in the state even of Peter and of John when they said to
the Jews: ‘Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto
you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen or heard.’ And I dare not answer save as they,
lest in saving my body from the flames to-day, I commit my soul to
the devil and his eternal fires to-morrow. Do you agree?”
In silence we looked on him, assenting. He reached down at his feet
and plucked a long slip of pure green grass.
“I have heard,” he continued, “that when the Crusaders were in the
wastes of Palestine, with the foe awaiting them, and no priest able
to administer the sacrament, they divided amongst themselves and
partook of a bit of grass, as token that they were still true to one
another, to their cause, and to the dear God. Shall we do the like?”
Together we nodded. His lips were a little pale as he broke the
slip into four portions and gave one to each. We ate the morsel,
looking out upon the welling river and the scattered clouds above it.
Suddenly Dr. Luther rose, and his laugh seemed carefree and boyish.
“Oh! What a tale to tell. Oh! Who would ever have dreamed it--that I,
a German miner’s son and a friar, should give so foul a headache to
the noble lords of the Vatican. Come, Philip; come all of us, back to
Wittenberg. There is work enough waiting and to spare.”
On the walk homeward I had never seen Doctor Luther more lively and
genial. He was full of droll anecdotes of his schoolboy life at
Eisenach and his student days at Erfurt. Melanchthon and Amsdorf, as
well as myself, were inclined to be pensive, but our master was able
to make good spirits for all of us. When I was about to leave him
at the convent, he was sitting down at his table with a huge leaden
inkstand and a prodigious pile of paper before him.
“A stranger,” said I from the threshold, “would think you were
about to compile a wondrously learned lecture on the Categories of
Aristotle.”
He laughed as he nibbed his pen.
“Think of me as the Crusader about to fall upon the Paynim,” he
shot back; “behold my battle-axe! _Ach!_ It is a mighty havoc, God
willing, I will make to-night among our present-day Mussulmans from
Italy!”
His pen began racing over the paper with marvellous rapidity. I stood
for a time watching him. Occasionally he would turn hastily the
leaves of his well-thumbed Bible to verify a text; once he reached
for the Reuchlin’s Hebrew Grammar. He speedily forgot my presence and
wrote faster than ever. I saw him fling aside his first sheet.
“_Upon the Babylonian Captivity of the Church_,” it read in Latin.
Another thunderbolt to rock the Vatican. Knowing that I could do
nothing more that day, I went to my pleasant hosts at the Castellan’s
house.
CHAPTER XXII
THE FRIAR OF WITTENBERG ORDAINS
It was a real home-coming which I had to the Regenstein. There seemed
to be affection as well as loyalty in the welcome all gave me, from
Adolf down to Wache, the great boar hound. Graf Moritz rode over
from Blankenburg with a brotherly greeting. By painful economy and
management he was putting his estates in tolerable order, and paying
off his father’s debts to the Frankfort Jews, and I was glad to see
his face growing less care-worn.
A few days, however, after my return, an incident occurred which
jarred me painfully. One afternoon as I sat writing in my cabinet
a deputation of four of my chief dependants came scraping and
bowing,--two petty nobles, and two well-to-do peasants, who rejoiced
in the title of “Schöffe.” On my granting permission, the spokesman,
a lean, long-winded rascal, entered upon a lengthy eulogium upon my
gracious governance, but then added that my loving subjects had been
much grieved by my repeated absences from the lordship, “the more
especially as I had no direct heir for the Regenstein, and in event
of any accident or foul hap, which God and the saints forefend!--the
whole country would pass to my very distant kinsfolk in Brandenburg.”
“And therefore?” I demanded.
“That your most noble Grace will in benignity condescend to the
loyal representations of your devoted liegemen, and speedily take to
yourself a noble wife, who will be mother to a worthy posterity. The
Graf von Wernigerode has two marriageable and comely daughters, and
we do most humbly represent--”
My Christian virtues had not been so cultivated at Wittenberg as to
prevent my gorge from rising.
“Hear you, sirrah!” I thundered. “Loyal subjects never masque as
busybodies! I suffer you to pick your own wives--be as good to your
Graf and master. When I would marry it will be time enough to have
you in as my august councillors.”
Four very sheepish “notables” shuffled out of my apartment. But the
incident cut me to the quick, the more as I knew all the countryside
was saying behind my back what these oafs had ventured to my face. In
fact, Moritz on his second visit again blurted it out.
“_Donnerwetter_, Walter. Don’t you see how you will never be happy
here in the North till you have somewhat to hold you? You know what I
wished for Ilsa? Well--the cat has lapped up that cream long since,
but there is more elsewhere. What with your wealth and breeding, you
might look for a great prince’s daughter; but Gräfin Elisabeth of
Wernigerode--”
“Good heavens, Moritz,” cried I, suffering him no further;--“are you
also in the conspiracy against me?”
“Conspiracy, no! Friendly truth. She is of the best of our Harz
nobility, piously bred, tall as a pine, and as lovely. Her father
announces a very ample dowry. There could be nothing more fortunate.”
Here, however, he stopped, halted by the pain that surely flashed
from my eyes. I put my hand on his knee.
“Good comrade,” said I, “you mean your words for the best, and I will
strive hard not to be angry. In the very spirit you name--friendly
advantage--I said that I sought your sister’s hand. It is everywhere
the same. ‘Passion for a sweetheart, cold calculation in picking a
wife.’ In Italy, Germany, in France or Spain, that is the kind of
a union the Church blesses. But your sister, Ilsa von Blankenburg,
thought otherwise, and she was right. Rather than take me, as I made
my chilly proffer, she sought the convent. And now how may I do this
wrong to Elisabeth von Wernigerode or any woman else?”
“Romance--worthy of a minnesinger!” he laughed in my face. “Awake,
man! Dwell not in minstrel’s dreams, but in realities.”
“Yes,” I tossed back bitterly; “in desperate realities I live, right
truly. And now I say somewhat that may startle you.”
“Discharge your culverin,” he ordered, watching me intently.
“_I will wed your sister Ilsa, or I will wed no woman._”
“Holy God!” he exclaimed, crossing himself; “are you proclaiming a
vow of celibacy, or are you mad? Whatsoever may befall Luther, nuns
have been nuns since Christians have been Christians. On what do you
base your hope?”
“I cannot tell,” I answered, with a fierce gesture, rising and
pacing feverishly. “In that Book which Luther teaches me to read is
written ‘Old things are passed away, behold all things are become
new.’ We stand on the threshold of changes beyond human imaginings.
Since quitting Italy, night after night I have seen some one in my
dreams--your sister. We are always together. We are holding each
other’s hands, we are looking into one another’s faces, we are
growing old joyously together as husband and wife. There is enough
Southern blood in me still to believe in signs and presages. I cannot
tell how it will all come to pass. I will do the task that comes to
hand--and hope.”
“Alas! poor Walter,” said he, shaking his head; “you might dream
better of the pot of gold beyond the moon than that Quedlinburg
convent will ever give you an honorable bride.”
“I am doing nothing rashly,” said I, reassuring him: “my deeds
shall be deeds of reason, but my thoughts are not to be ruled by
schoolman’s logic.”
So we dropped the sore topic, and talked of the new Emperor and
whether he could long maintain the peace with France. Nevertheless,
that night I sent my quondam outlaw Gunter away on a private mission.
He was to steal back to Quedlinburg and ascertain from his daughter
Trude what was the gossip among the nuns touching the abbess’s niece.
* * * * *
But now for me began a period of intense activity. Not lightly had
I taken that strange pledge with the other three that summer’s day,
beside the rushing Elbe. If Luther and the Cause were to be saved,
they were not to be saved by letters from learned doctors, nor by
the plaudits of students and worthy peasants. One thing I knew in
last resort would halt the vengeance of the now roused Vatican,--the
“thou shalt not” of the German princes and free cities, backed by the
armed hand. In Italy I had failed. In Germany I did not fail. During
the following months I was but little at the Regenstein. My mission
carried me to almost every princely court in North Germany. Sometimes
I was turned away with scant courtesies, but not always. If Elector
Frederick of Saxony sent word to Luther to remain in Wittenberg, at a
moment the hard-pressed friar was preparing to flee the land, I had
my modest part in winning the favor of His Electoral Grace. I was
in constant correspondence with Spalatin, the Elector’s confessor.
Not a few influential Grafs and Freiherrs were changed from wavering
friends to hearty supporters by my poor efforts. Perhaps it was
thanks to me that young Philip, Markgraf of Hesse, so early gave his
support to the Cause and its leader. I had like fortune at the ducal
courts of Brunswick, Lüneburg and Mecklenburg. I argued the case
of Luther before the lordly Burgomasters and Councillors of mighty
Lübeck, the queen city by the Baltic--and not in vain.
My travels even carried me to distant Prussia, to the confines of the
German land; and there in his glorious Marienburg, true Kaiser among
castles, I met Prince Albrecht, Grand-Master of the Teutonic Knights,
and talked till the candles were deep in their sockets, pleading the
cause of Germany against Italy, of the Wittenberg prophet against
the black gowns of Rome. And here too I think my seed was destined
to bear a harvest. Then as I labored, and imagined I saw my labors
crowned with a fair success, I felt my soul rise buoyantly within me.
I knew that the forsaking of Italy had been no rash mistake, that I
could mock at my old companions when they wrote to me from the South
“thou fool.”
As I went to and fro, I knew that Luther’s pen had never been more
active. In October the presses had begun to clang with the great
_Babylonish Captivity_ pamphlet,--a true trumpet call to battle.
Almost simultaneously came _The Freedom of a Christian Man_, wherein
was set forth the peace, joy, liberty, possessed by him who had cast
off the old Church and its bondage. Then pealed another clarion,--the
last _Letter to the Pope_, wherein the peasant’s son spoke to the
Holy Father in tones never heard by Pope before. Clearly he told Leo
de’ Medici that it was not he in person, but the Vatican and the
evils it perpetuated, against which he aimed.
“The Church of Rome, one time most holy of all churches, has become
the lawless den of thieves, the very kingdom of sin, death, and hell,
so that not even Anti-Christ could devise addition to its wickedness.
Meantime you, O Leo, are sitting as a lamb amid wolves,--what
resistance can you alone make to these monstrous woes!”
Violent? Most surely. But let those who would have had Luther speak
softly and sweetly, tell whether the Monsignori have ever yielded jot
or tittle for all the fair arguments in the world? When a battle is
joined, strong men do not let blood with needles.
Presently, after due rumors, the Papal Bull was published in Germany.
Eck had brought it North with a kind of triumph. He had caused to be
inserted in the Bull the names of several controversialists, who were
his personal foes, some of whom were no intimate friends of Luther.
To intrust the publication of the Bull to Eck, the most unpopular
man in Germany, was simply another of those blunders whereby the
Vatican spun its own skein of troubles. Where a prince-bishop or the
Dominicans were influential it was published amid sullen silence, and
in a few such towns Luther’s books, blazed in little bonfires lit by
the common hangman (which bonfires added to the sale and reading of
the heretical books exceedingly). But in North Germany many a duke or
burghermaster let the mob pluck the offensive paper from the church
door and rend it to pieces amid shrill curses. So it was actually
treated by the students even in monk-ridden Leipzig. Yet everywhere
men asked me, “How will the friar answer?” For answer was expected,
and rightly. Early in December I received this letter, while passing
through Dresden.
_Martin Luther to his dear friend in Christ, the noble Graf
Walter von Regenstein_:--
Come to Wittenberg by the 10th, without fail. I have a song to
sing, and a deed to perform which you must hear and see.
Farewell.
I guessed the purpose of the summons. Little was the need again to
urge my coming. I entered Wittenberg on the evening of the ninth, and
almost as my horse went under the gate, a friendly student thrust in
my hand a printed bill. I give it word for word.
All Friends of Evangelical Truth
_are summoned about nine o’clock to the Church of the Holy
Cross beyond the city wall_.
At that place, according to ancient apostolic usage, the godless
books of the Papal constitutions and the Scholastic Theology will
be burned; inasmuch as the presumption of the enemies of the
Gospel has gone so far that they have cast the godly, evangelical
books of Luther into the fire.
Let all earnest students attend this sight, for now is the time
when Anti-Christ must stand revealed.
The air of the small city seemed charged as before a thunderstorm.
Men stood in little knots upon the street talking in low whispers.
Now at last the dullest and feeblest who had said “peace, peace,”
knew that peace was not to be, that Christendom was to be rent into
two hostile camps, a schism that might endure far beyond children’s
children.
Freiherr von Steinitz greeted me with his usual cordiality at his
stately home, but he and his good lady were alike touched by the
common sentiment. We sat silent and pensive by his well-piled table.
At last he gave a forced laugh.
“Do you remember that evening of your first coming more than three
years ago, and how I asked who would bell the cat, meaning Tetzel?”
“Certainly.”
“Saints and angels! Who would have imagined that after belling the
cat, it must needs prove necessary to bell Leo, the lion! God grant
we do not all make the beast a fine meal ere it is over; but it is
Heaven’s way, not ours. Luther is a prophet of God, if ever Moses or
Elijah were such. Live or die, we are with him.”
And I think Von Steinitz spoke the mind of all Wittenberg that night.
At the Augustinian convent later I found Luther and Melanchthon with
a few friends. Their tongues were going briskly. Dr. Martin even
ventured the catch of a song.
“I was certain of your coming, Walter,” was his greeting when I
entered. “The devil will try very hard to-morrow to make us sad and
down-hearted. So we will prove our trust in God by abundance of good
talk and music, for I am sure the angels are better pleased by seeing
men happy, than by fasting or lying all night in the shape of a
cross.”
I sat down with the company. My gloomy mood fled. I told of my
adventures and successes in Mechlenburg and Prussia. Melanchthon was
charming, with his classic wit and apt quotations; even the serious
Amsdorf was merry.
“What a pleasant evening was this,” said Dr. Martin when I left him.
“Why cannot the fine cardinals at Rome and the Dominicans leave a
poor rascal like myself alone; then I could always sit with Philip by
the stove, with a little beer and the good word going? But we must
have very hard and strait words to-morrow.”
* * * * *
The morning of the short winter day dawned gray and tolerably warm.
A damp mist was driving across the Elbe marshlands, and above it
the towers of the two Wittenberg churches and the tops of the tall
poplars by the river loomed like great dim cones floating upon
clouds. Long before the time set, the crowds were in motion, from Von
Steinitz in his fur-lined cloak, and the pompous city “Honorability”
to the begging itinerant students, ragged at knee and elbow. All
lectures had ceased in the University. Down Collegien-strasse we
streamed, a silent, thoughtful multitude. The mist had lifted a
little by the time we passed the eastern Elster-gate, outside of
which stood the little Chapel of the Holy Cross. Hard by was a small
pest-house used in days of the plague, and before it an open space
where infected clothing had been burned. On this appropriate spot
the zealous students had heaped dry wood, well soaked with pitch--a
goodly pyre.
We stood in a wide circle, drawing our cloaks about us, while waiting
the little procession from the Augustinian Convent. There was no long
delay. About a dozen of Luther’s theological friends, capped and
gowned according to their masterships and doctorates, accompanied
their friend and leader. He carried his head high, and his body
a trifle rigid. Never had I seen a deeper light in his eyes. No
elaborate ceremonies delayed him. Perhaps by the mere simplicity of
his act he desired to mark the antithesis to the ponderous ceremonial
and procedure of the Church whereon he was declaring war. The crowd
opened to let him pass. His arms were full of books,--I could guess
their titles, “Gratian’s Decretals of the Canon Law,” “Thomas
Aquinas,” “Albertus Magnus,” and the other great schoolmen whose
teachings had been to Rome a front and rear ward. Silent stood we
all, while he advanced and laid them on the pyre, then stepped back.
A man in a master’s robe appeared with a firebrand, and cast it far
into the pyre. The flames caught instantly. They mounted crackling
toward the winter heavens. Soon they roared in a mighty blaze. Then
we saw Dr. Luther approach again. From under his cloak he drew a
scroll and held it aloft that all might witness--those near enough
could behold the Papal arms, and the seal of Leo de’ Medici. It was
the Bull of Excommunication. Out into the flames he flung it, as one
would fling a snake, while his great voice sounded to the confines of
the breathless crowd:--
“_Because thou has troubled the Holy One of God, may the eternal fire
consume thee!_”
The Pope had excommunicated Martin Luther. Martin Luther had
excommunicated the Pope.
He stood a little while in a kind of revery, watching the dancing
fire until books and scroll had glowed away to ashes; then amid a
tense silence of the people he wrapped his black cassock about him,
and followed by his friends went quietly back to the convent.
After his going, much of the multitude dispersed; but the students
long kept up the sport, feeding the fire, casting on the flame
numerous pamphlets of Luther’s enemies, and singing mock funeral
hymns over the dying embers. The next day Dr. Martin reproved the
students for their levity, after what had been a solemn and sacred
act, adding intently: “If, with your whole heart, you do not separate
from the dominion of the Pope, you cannot be saved. In this wicked
world I would rather endure all perils, than, by silence, burden my
conscience with the account which I must render unto God.”
Such was that 10th of December, and the more I meditate on the thing
then done the more I marvel at the manner whereby Heaven allowed that
weak friar to bring great deeds to pass. Other Papal Bulls had been
burned before--by mighty monarchs. Henry IV, in his imperial pride,
had thundered against Roman domination, and Henry IV had knelt in the
snows at Canossa, seeking abjectly the pardon of the stern Vicar of
Christ. Luther, the peasant’s son, went to no Canossa. He fared to
Worms, and God fared with him.
CHAPTER XXIII
I MEET ABBESS THECKLA
Now that Rome had shown its hand, and Luther his, no man could
doubt what would come to pass,--that pressure, ecclesiastical and
political, would be brought upon the young Emperor Charles to consign
Luther without further hearing to the fiery pains and penalties of
heresy. “Rome had spoken,” and the only official duty for the secular
prince was to execute the clear law of the land against the convicted
misbeliever. But despite the clamors of the Papal nuncios at Aächen,
where Charles was solemnly crowned, they could not for the moment
have their way. The Emperor, we began to realize, was no friend of
the new religion; but youth as he was, he was not so rash as to
begin his reign by an act of violence that might array his subjects
in armed revolt. Also the desires of Elector Frederick (to whom he
largely owed his throne) were not to be waived aside.
As for Frederick, I soon heard how the olive-faced Italian nuncios
were full of insolence and threatenings, when they met him at Cöln,
and strove to browbeat him into giving Luther up incontinently. “The
Pope,” quoth one, “can say to the Emperor, ‘Thou art a day-laborer,’
and it will be so.” And behind the Elector’s back they sneered, “we
will find a way with your Duke Frederick.” But the good Elector,
masterfully slow and cautious, answered mildly that _if_ Luther had
written wrongfully against the Pope, he was exceeding sorry, but
that as for the Bull it had been issued without any proper hearing
of Luther’s cause; so let the alleged offender have a trial before
‘just, learned, pious, and unsuspected judges,’ and his fate could be
considered after he was convicted.
Over these utterances of the honest Saxon the Italians were fain to
gnash their teeth; but they had at hand neither armies nor lightning
bolts. The heretic still warmed himself at Wittenberg. I knew
Frederick had been the more confirmed in his studious inertia by
his conference with the famous Erasmus. “Wherein has Luther erred?”
asked the Elector. “In two great things,” replied the scholar; “he
has attacked the Pope’s crown and the monks’ bellies.” Whereupon
Frederick smiled and lapsed into that silence which proved so golden.
So far the Vatican had been checked by sheer passivity, but this
could not last forever. In January the Diet of the Empire would
meet at Worms. All the Papal influence would be used to order the
destruction of Luther. There it would be settled whether the hero
of Germany was to burn at the fiat of a worldly Italian; and we all
girded our loins, took courage from the past, and made ready each one
of us to play his part for the Cause and its champion.
Yet, in the midst of my greatest activity, riding post from
Wittenberg to Brunswick, thrusting myself on ducal councillors,
dictating letters to a wearied secretary, I sometimes asked myself,
“What means all this to me?” What if Germany were redeemed from the
shadow of Rome, a new hope dawned upon the land--what profit for
myself? Had the Cause demanded a dash into battle to die on serried
Swiss pikemen, I would have charged--how gladly! But to live on, to
have the days of triumphant excitement pass, and the long slow years
of painful upbuilding creep heavily,--what would they bring to me?
I fought away the question. I added to my Bible formulas the wise
adage, “take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take
thought for the things of itself.” From Plato, Marcus Aurelius, and
Plutarch I could add a score more of philosophic precepts. Often
my mind recurred to my rash utterance to Moritz at the Regenstein
touching his sister. Why could I not command my dreams? Even if
immemorial law and custom had not made Ilsa von Blankenburg to me
even as the dead, what season was this for thoughts of marrying and
giving in marriage? Tradition, reason, religion, were alike against
me. Was I not wedded to the Cause and that only? And yet,--I saw her
almost every night.
I leave my case to be diagnosed by philosophers and deep physicians.
If I was paler than when I first entered Germany, it was, heaven
knew, because I had had enough concern for Dr. Martin! I was passing
through Minden after a tolerably satisfactory mission to the Council
of Bremen when a thing took place which set all my head aglow, and
taught me how I truly stood, how under high thoughts for the Cause I
harbored plenty of plain human passion.
In the square before the grave old cathedral stood the familiar
pillory and gallows, and here, it being a prince-bishop’s residence,
the public hangman, a villainously visaged fellow, attended by a few
approving priests, was casting upon a small fire sundry pamphlets,
which one of the clerics explained in a loud voice “were of that most
pestilent son of the devil, the beloved of the whole host of hell,
Martin Luther, etc.” A small crowd was gazing in sullen silence.
The scene was not to my liking, but I had no intention of making a
useless martyr of myself by interfering then, and I was watching
cynically from a safe distance when I beheld a lady abbess, all in
white wool and ermine, with a sweep and clatter ride up upon her tall
bay palfrey, two nuns on less elegant steeds followed, with two lay
serving-maids, and a few male servitors. They drew rein, and their
mistress sat, evidently watching the sight with great content, as
the hangman added pamphlet after pamphlet and the priest bawled out
the titles. Suddenly the game, however, was rudely interrupted. Out
of a side street came rushing a young man in peasant dress, a goodly
cudgel waving above his head.
“O Holy God! O Holy God!” he fell to shouting. “See how these
scoundrels crucify Thy word afresh! They are worse than the Jews, for
they take Thy name in vain! At them, Christians--avenge the pious
books the black crows try to burn!”
And thereat with all the valor of fanaticism and youth, he leaped
straight up on the pillory, and I saw his staff dash down on the
shaven crown of a protesting priest with a thwack that sent the
cleric spinning. In a twinkling the gaping crowd of lazy apprentices,
hucksters, and guild journeymen was changed into a bawling, infuriate
mob, casting itself upon clerks and hangman, stamping out the fire,
calling for “ropes for the crows’ necks,” and howling all manner of
curses. So much can one spark explode, if only the train is ready! A
handful of halberdiers came running from the neighboring Rathaus to
avenge outraged authority, but in the melée their weapons were mostly
wrested from them, while forth from every tall timber house near the
square swarmed men with pikes and boys with cudgels, to swell the mob.
I was beholding all, with inward blessings for the rioters, when my
eye lit upon the lady abbess. In the tumult her horse had became
restive. She was separated from her followers, and sorely tested to
retain the control of her palfrey, when I saw a rascally looking
apprentice pounce at her bridle.
“A prize, comrades! Not a black crow, but a white one--ei!”
His dirty fingers closed over her ermine cloak. The brooch held it.
He was actually tearing it from her shoulders, despite her struggles
and screams, when I felled him with a sweeping blow from the flat of
my sword. He rose with execrations, called to his mates, and some of
them might rashly have assailed even a ritter with his weapon ready,
when the sight of Adolf and two other burly Regensteiners at my back
made them one and all slink away.
“With your pardon, Reverend Abbess,” I said, “I will extricate you
from this outrageous tumult.” And then I shouted, during a lull, to
the rioters, “Hearken, good folk, broken heads and foul oaths do not
make honest Christians! Your furious zeal does Dr. Luther little
honor! I am sure these worthy priests are sorry they ever lit the
bonfire. Now let them go, and do all things peaceably.”
The less heated contestants dropped their arms instantly, the more
angry glowered a moment, then were fain to imitate. The priests and
halberdiers improved the chance to flee to the Rathaus and bar the
door. The original champion of Luther drew the charred papers out
of the fire and held them up reverently before all the people. Then
he began to chant Hutten’s bitter poem on the commandment to burn
Luther’s books.
“Here, Lord, Thy holy words they burn;
Thy teachings pure they from them spurn;
Here are Thy precepts thrust aside,
And license given to vice and pride.”
At the end of every couplet the folk answered with a yell. A
procession began to organize to course the town, and I knew there
would be more rioting and an anxious hour for His Grace the
prince-bishop ere the day was over. My business was to conduct the
abbess to a place of safety.
“Reverend lady,” I began again, “this is likely to be a blustering
day on the streets, but my inn is near and I have stout fellows to
guard us. Suffer me therefore--”
I drew off my cap in salutation, and simultaneously she thrust back
her displaced coif. For the first time our eyes met fairly. I was
addressing Abbess Theckla of Quedlinburg....
The blood went up to her pale cheeks; I am sure I flushed also.
Fortunately the existing tumult was sufficient excuse for scanty
conversation.
“Here is no pleasant spot for exchanging civilities,” I remarked, as
coolly as I might; “at the inn we can discourse more comfortably.”
She twitched an instant at her bridle, but the mob began to howl
again, whilst their self-appointed leader read forth from the charred
sheets one of Luther’s especially vehement denunciations of Popery.
Pride capitulated before obvious prudence.
“Wolves!” she muttered through her white teeth. She suffered me to
lead her palfrey. My men walked beside the horses of her retinue.
Adolf’s flail-like sword clattered on the cobbles in a way that
warned against molesting us. We were soon at the _Goldene Krone_,
where mine host relieved, came running to greet me, “fearful lest his
Lordship had been murdered in the brawling.” We were soon behind good
bolts and bars, and though we heard shouting later, and a couple of
arquebuse shots, the inn servants brought in tidings that the tumult
was quieting before a vigorous demonstration by the bishop’s guards,
and that nobody had really perished. As for the strange leader of the
riot, he had vanished down a side street, and none could catch him.
“One of the innumerable hawkers of Luther’s pamphlets, no doubt,”
quoth the host, with a shake of his head, “oh! such times. The whole
town by the ears over a few sheets of paper. Men get so excited
crying ‘Luther’ and ‘Leo’ over their cups, they forget the need of a
second flagon. Ruin to all good business!”
By the time the outbreak had quieted it was far too late for the
abbess to continue to Hanover for the night,--she being on journey
homeward, her maids explained, from Osnabrück, where there had been a
meeting of her order. The host placed at her disposal the rooms which
I had taken, and I confess to a little sinful delight at putting Her
Reverence under an increased obligation. Ever coldly precise, the
abbess ere retiring deigned to say a few words of formal thanks for
my double service.
“But, gracious and holy Lady,” said I, with my best bow, “I have vast
pleasure in befriending the near kinswoman of my dear comrade Graf
Moritz von Blankenburg.”
The abbess’s pink and white face colored again. In a tone as
monotonous as a slow chill river she answered me.
“I am indeed grateful. I would ill requite your present courtesy,
my Lord Graf von Regenstein, by speaking of other days, and indeed
since now that lady you once called Ilsa von Blankenburg is become a
blessed bride of Christ, I can think of no reason why I should not
accept your gallantry with all thanks; and yet--”
She hesitated, eying me deliberately, as if asking me to draw her
disapproval, and I complied not unwillingly.
“I am awaiting your Reverence’s opinion.”
“The Graf von Regenstein will not grow angry if I say I would have my
nephew and himself less intimate friends. I have heard the reports
of your life at Rome and Palaestro. I know of your connection with
that Cardinal of Forli, one of the few, the _very_ few churchmen whom
His Holiness in excess of benignity allows to disgrace his sacred
calling. I am not unaware how you sought to frustrate my pious wish,
and turn my niece away from the convent to your own most sinful life.
Nevertheless, inasmuch as it was your own action, Sir Graf, which at
last overcame her hesitation and drove her into our blessed retreat,
again I can do nothing else than thank you.”
Had she been a man, I would have felled her to the floor with my
knotted fist; as it was, I simply bit my tongue for an instant, then
asked in a voice that possibly shook a little, “Whether the Lady Ilsa
was now exceeding happy in her new life?”
“She is happy with that happiness which the world cannot give. Our
Holy Mother the Church has received her into her bosom. She is
possessed by a peace and joy which I fear you, Sir Graf, can never
know.”
I was tempted to question the abbess touching her opinion of Luther.
It would have provoked a lively volley. But _cui bono_? He who
argues with a woman has surely one arm tied. I only bowed again,
very low, and wished her Ladyship a restful night. It was still too
early to think of retiring myself, and I amused myself in the great
room of the inn with a bottle of tolerable Hochheimer, and reading
“The Soul’s Vegetable Garden,” by Dietrich Koelds, a little book of
pious meditation, much in acceptance in North Germany,--not very
brisk company, but all I could find, and better than my own unruly
thoughts. I was just yawning for the seventh time, when I saw a woman
standing before me, a young peasant woman, with a comely blond face.
I recognized her as one of the lay servitors of the abbess.
“Sir,” she asked, “are you the Graf von Regenstein?” I nodded.
“Then, sir,” with a quick look about (the room was now nearly empty),
“will you graciously listen to me, if I tell you somewhat of Sister
Ilsa?”
I fear I almost dropped the book, my lips surely twitched when I bade
her, “Say on.”
“Oh! Sir Graf, she is most miserable and unhappy.”
“Why do you come to tell me that?”
“You do not understand. I am Trude, the daughter of that Gunter
of the Brook, whose life your Lordship spared. He went to me on
your behalf, but ere his return to the Regenstein your Lordship had
departed. Now I will tell you.”
“Do you know this ‘Sister’ Ilsa?” I asked, eying her keenly.
“Well indeed. She has little to do with most of the nuns and serving
women, but one day I ran a knife into my hand while in the kitchen.
It was most terrible. She bandaged and nursed me. The rest neglected
‘the outlaw’s daughter.’ She did not. Oh! her heart is tender and
good as Our Blessed Lady’s. Once I asked her why she, the abbess’s
niece and perhaps abbess herself some day, was so kindly to me, a
poor wench, whose father was disgraced. ‘Ah! Trude,’ said she, with a
laugh I did not like, ‘I shall never be abbess of Quedlinburg. I am
not a saint like Aunt Theckla. Sometimes I think I have no vocation.
That being so, I try to be as kind as I can to everybody, just to
stop thinking.’ Your Lordship attends and is interested?”
“I am interested. Go on. Tell only the truth, however, or your
father, and you, too, are forever undone.”
“That was some time since. We have grown even closer friends now,
more than perhaps is fitting, seeing I am peasant and she a great
lady; but she would have it so. The nuns complain she has little to
do with most of them. She takes no interest in distilling medicines
or in their endless needle work. She almost never complains herself,
but oh! my Lord Graf, she is most unhappy. Once she made to me a kind
of confession.”
“What was it?”
“Once she said, ‘Trude, no one should ever enter the convent unless
she is very sure of her vocation. I know a nun here in Quedlinburg,
who took the vows to ransom her father’s soul, he being dead, and her
lover’s, he being still alive, but very sinful. Now she knows it is
no prayer nor deed of hers that can ever avail for either, but only
the loving mercy of God. She has no vocation for the convent; but the
vows are taken. Pray God, Trude, there be not many other women in her
state.’”
“This is indeed sad, my lass,” I said, I hope with well affected
indifference, “but whence came this strange notion of hers that it is
‘the mercy of God’ which alone will save a soul? Surely the nuns are
not taught that?”
“I am not sure, Sir,” she answered, “but I think Sister Ilsa has
bought some of Dr. Luther’s books when she has gone down to the
market in Quedlinburg. Once I saw her with a printed pamphlet. She
hid it in her dress very quickly when an old nun passed by, and
whispered ‘She must not see that, Trude, or Aunt Theckla will rage
terribly.’”
“The nuns have been forbidden to read Dr. Luther’s books, then?” I
inquired.
“Of course, by the abbess; but all the younger nuns are reading
them. They hardly dare to confess it one to another, much less to
the chaplain. They say Luther writes wonderfully well, although the
abbess says ‘his inspiration is of the devil.’ But I am only a poor,
unlettered girl, and cannot judge.”
Here the clock thundered out a late hour, and I told Trude to depart,
first putting three silver gulden in her hand, and promising her as
many more if I could see her again very early in the morning, before
her mistress set forth for Hanover. As for myself, I tossed on my
feather beds all night.
“She has no vocation for the convent, but the vows are taken.”
The trumpeters of hell seemed dinning the words through my head
unceasingly.
CHAPTER XXIV
I PLAY WITH FIRE
Many are the fair cities of Germany, but few I think nobler situate
than ancient Quedlinburg, on the eastern verge of the Harzland.
They say old King Henry the Fowler founded the town, and his son,
the first Otto, transported hither the nuns of Wenthussen, giving
them the queenly abbey which dominates the burghers’ houses and the
markplatz from its steep, nigh unapproachable, hill. All around below
this convent-citadel spreads the rolling farm country, and to south
and west open the noble summits of the Harz, at this time sparkling
again under their mantle of snow. The twin towers of the abbey church
rose from the crest like two slim fingers pointing towards the blue,
silent monitors of the way to heaven.
It was a perfect winter’s day. Cold but very still. The smoke from
the chimneys mounted upward in straight columns until it faded away,
a gray mist in the sun-shot heavens. In the market-place, before
the ancient brick Rathaus, donkeys wheezed as they brought in their
loads, geese and hens cackled, pigs squealed, housewives and market
women upraised shrill voices as they debated the price of eggs or of
frozen herring. Every one was too busy to pay attention to a beggar
who came stealing out of the horse stalls by the _Weisser Engel_,
especially as this same beggar avoided any attention. The beggar was
myself.
“Playing with fire?”--I surely knew it. I had told myself it was
treason to the Cause a hundred times. But, good God, what stuff was
I made of? When, on my return to the Regenstein, I had met a letter
telling me to postpone for two weeks my projected mission to the
Palatinate, could I sit cooling my heels in lonesome grandeur in my
chilly hall of state, with no brisker company than Adolf? Risks I
ran, and I candidly confessed them. Discovery would doubtless ruin
utterly my influence for the Cause, and yet I felt that Dr. Luther,
if consulted, would have bidden me “go in God’s name,” and have only
prayed the harder if I seemed thrusting into peril.
As I moved cautiously from the inn, the spirit of adventure rose
within me. My disguise was admirable, and I conceived that some
slight experience as Harlequin and Pantalone in divers polite
comedies and maskings at Rome enabled me to carry the part. I
was arrayed as a wandering pilgrim, begging his way from shrine
to shrine, and what with very tattered brown mantle and hose, a
capacious bag for alms, a heavy staff and a villainous trim on my
beard, I think I fairly looked the part. As I went up the street I
even paused at an open door where a rosy-cheeked young matron was
scrubbing the lintel, and held out my bag, just to gain practise and
courage.
“_Panem propter Deum_--bread for God’s sake, gracious mistress,” I
whined through my nose, and she looked up at me quickly.
“You are a genuine pilgrim, poor man,” quoth she; “surely your cloak
is ragged enough.”
“Genuine, by the Holy Rood, generous lady. Ah! if I could relate
to you all my sad travels. In my boyhood I cursed my mother, and
she died suddenly ere granting forgiveness. Therefore I took the
pilgrim’s vows to save my soul. Fulda, St. Martin’s shrine in Tours
in France, St. James of Compostella, St. Thomas of Canterbury; I
have visited them all. Now I would fain visit holy Einsiedeln in
Switzerland, but the way is long--”
“Ah! my poor friend,” said she, manifestly stirred by my twanging
pathos, “I am sure your mother has long since forgiven you up in
heaven. You must have been indeed a good son, though a bit hasty of
tongue, to proffer such expiation. Well, if to Einsiedeln you must
go, you must not go starving. Wait a moment.”
She was gone into the house, and soon came back with two small loaves
of bread and a goodly slice of ham, which she placed in my wallet.
“Now hasten on, I beg of you,” she enjoined, “my Heinrich has been
reading those books of Dr. Luther, and says now that giving to
pilgrims is giving to rogues. If he knows, he will be in a temper.”
“Our Lady bless and assoil you,” I whined as I shuffled away, made
confident by my success, yet boiling inwardly at the shallowness
of an imposture which must have made religion the finest dress for
beggary through all wide Germany.
And now I began to go up the slow, steep way to the castle convent.
Trude and Adolf had arranged everything, had taught me the custom of
the nuns in distributing their alms, and had brought it to pass, by a
discreet distribution of groschen to earlier comers, that I should be
the only applicant upon that day. At the gate house, before I entered
the fortification, the sleepy old porter looked out of his lodge, as
I trudged past.
“Go up! go up, you cheese-hunter.[10] Your bag is well filled, I
warrant, and you’ve breakfasted better than I; but you’ll meet one of
the sisters at the inner grille, and she’ll give you more.”
So he called cynically, and I continued on my way. The cobble paved
ascent ended presently. Before me rose the bleak stone wall of the
inner convent, where I was unprivileged to enter; but I had been
informed what I must do. Turning to the left I saw a small doorway.
The inner door was open, but across it was a firm iron lattice
duly locked within, and above the lattice hung a little image of
St. Christopher bearing Our Lord, also a small bell. I seized the
dangling cord and rang. Immediately a very old nun, all bent and
furrowed under her black robes and veil, responded.
“Well, fellow,” she demanded, not too amiably.
“_Panem propter Deum_,” I whined at my best. “I am a poor pilgrim,
very hungry, and nigh spent.”
“Bah!” she answered tartly from behind the bars, “you look as fat as
any of them; but it’s none of my business to sift your silly stories.
Wait a bit. This is Sister Ilsa’s task. She can listen all day, and
give you the convent bread if she will.”
She slipped on a pair of wooden shoes, and I heard her go clattering
away down a long dark corridor. “Sister Ilsa:--” I wonder if, of all
the multitude of mendicants who sought alms while the nuns were in
Quedlinburg, one had ever emotions and thoughts like mine!
It seemed a century that I waited. Probably it was only a few
moments. I was growing very cold, but not with the winter wind. Then
a warm rush of blood tingled from crown to heels--another nun was
approaching the grille. I could have told that step from a thousand.
Overcome for the instant, I felt my strength failing me. I caught an
iron bar of the lattice, and leaned there stupidly, dumbly.
Then a voice, ah! what a voice. “Alas! poor man, so overcome by
hunger and fatigue you cannot stand upright, be of good cheer. See,
here is good bread and beef brawn. And if you are very cold, though I
cannot let you in, I will fetch some _aqua vitae_ from the buttery.”
“Come, Graf von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein,” I exhorted myself, as
though for a sore ordeal; “play your part as a man!”
By an action of real will, I straightened, looked her fairly in the
eye, and with unblushing countenance repeated my story. She thrust
the food through the grille, and I began eating it with feigned
heartiness, although I rejected her offer of liquors. The act of
devouring gave me excuse for eying her without speaking. She was
exceedingly pallid; the white coif and the black veil over it added
to the effect of marble. There were lines around her lips and below
her eyes which I misliked greatly; but to me no luxurious Venetian
goddess of Palma Vecchio could have seemed more fair. Her hand
touched mine as she reached a piece of meat, and a kind of electric
fire sprang through me. I watched shrewdly, to be sure that we were
quite alone. The old nun had clearly been glad of a substitute, and
the chill day had quenched the usual convent curiosity. All had
doubtless sought a genial hearth fire. After my eating had slacked a
little, my benefactress began to ply me with questions as to my past
pilgrimages and future wandering, and I answered as before, inventing
shamelessly. At last she said:--
“I should think God, if He is really so good as we are taught, could
forgive you after a little more. Surely you have long since paid out
the price for your evil words to your mother.”
“So I trust, holy Lady,” said I, “but I have not told you yet, I
think, that I have vowed to spend all my life as a pilgrim; and can
vows, even lightly taken, ever be broken?”
I have called her pale, but now she turned ashen. She in turn
clutched at the grille. Her lips were opened, but without speech.
With the iron lattice between us, but our faces quite close, I spoke
softly.
“Do you not know me, Ilsa?”
She sprang back as if smitten by an arrow; from her mouth came
a muffled scream; under her black veil her great eyes shone out
terribly. I thought her about to flee, but her strength seemed to
fail her. She fell on her knees by the lattice, pressing her head
against the bars. I knelt and kissed one of her hands as it closed
around the iron.
“Walter!” she said; “Walter!” And for some time she seemed able only
to repeat my name.
“I knew you were in sorrow, Ilsa,” I said now calmly; rising, and
letting her sobbing and panic spend itself, “therefore I have come.
And believe me, it is not the Devil, but God who has brought me here.”
She sat upright now, and showed no signs of flight; but twisted and
untwisted her hands in a manner piteous. At last she began talking
brokenly.
“Oh! what are we to do? Christ help us! What are we to do?” Presently
her form straightened. “You have done wrong, Walter, utterly wrong
to come here. Do you not see what you have done? After I realized
how terrible had been my mistake, how not by praying _for_ you in
the distant cloister, but _beside_ you as your loving wife, I might
have made you a nobler man, what could I do save to try to crush all
memory, all initiative, all ambition? To become as dry and unhuman
and cold as these nuns here? And I believed I was gaining the mastery
over myself, a little. And now you are here, and all the fires are
burning hotter, a thousandfold hotter than ever. Blessed God, but it
is hard!”
“Ilsa,” I answered her, “hard it has been for you, but bethink you,
somewhat hard it has been for me. After you spurned me, only the
grace of God and the monitions of Dr. Luther saved me from turning
back to my old life, seven times more wicked than before. And think
not your prayers were wholly vain. Let no man boast his soul is
reckoned safe; but if man may strive, I have striven to redeem mine.
I am not what I was once. I am all German now.” And in as few words
as possible I told her of my efforts for my Regenstein folk and in
behalf of Dr. Luther. Seeing the thing seemed to interest her I
told her of the present state of the Cause, and how all Germany
seemed straining on her moorings to Rome, and how Papal power, and
all things with it, were like to be swept into the cupboard of the
discarded past.
She put her hands to her eyes as I spoke. There came the relief of
tears. Presently she was calmer than I.
“Are we in danger of discovery?” I asked.
“I think not. The nuns do not like me overwell. Meeting the beggars
is my one permitted diversion. They are quite content to leave me
to chatter in the cold with mendicants. We can converse a little
longer.” Then she took my right hand firmly in hers. “Now let us
reason together bravely and soberly, for we are not a silly wench and
a silly hind to pawn our souls for a moment of evil passion, nor am I
the first nun to beat out her life like a caught sparrow on the bars
of its cage, caught as I was by a hope that was vain, and a life that
cannot satisfy.”
“Brave and sober we must be,” I asserted, “and what we do we shall
do clear-eyed, and in sight of God and His angels. But tell me once
again, for my ears long for it, do you truly love me?”
“Till eternity cease to be, I love you.” And there beneath that cold
winter sky, she put her face to the bars of the grille, and I kissed
her, the black veil touching my cheek as I did so. Playing with fire
indeed!
“Ei!” she cried with a flash of her old-time vivacity, “I have given
my lips to a pretty beggar.”
“Now,” I said, very slowly, “come weal, come woe, come separation,
come union; few things can truly matter. God is above us. Life is
short, eternity long, and convents are not, nor vows in the vast
Hereafter.”
She let go my hand. We stood facing one another. A merciful
Providence still left us uninterrupted, and by great good fortune
there were no windows overlooking the grille. Then I told her how
night by night I saw her in my dreams, and ever as my wife. And as I
spoke I saw that she was marvelling.
“But Walter,” spoke she, “now these many nights I have dreamed ever
the same; it has been always in the Regenstein, the dear Regenstein,
which I can see on clear days from the convent windows, and you were
always with me, and folk called me ‘wife’ and ‘mother.’ How, how can
these things be? God spoke once in dreams, to Samuel, to Peter, to
Paul, and are they but fleeting phantoms now?”
“I cannot tell,” I answered. “I could speak from the lore of the
pagan Greeks and Latins, but to what profit? Yet know this. I am Graf
von Regenstein, and my men will follow me. Say but the word, and I
will have you out of Quedlinburg convent by mild means or violent,
and hold you safe in the castle against all the thunders of the
Church.”
She shook her head. “You are jesting, Walter, I know it. I must come
to you only as your honored bride. There is no hope thus. We could
not live at peace in all Christendom. Perchance we might flee to
the uttermost isles--those isles of the vast blue deep they say the
Spaniards found--where golden fruits hang on the trees, and summer
never ends. There we might indeed be beyond the reproach of men, but,
tell me, would we be beyond the reproach of God?”
I reached through the grille and regained her hand.
“No, Ilsa,” I rejoined, “I would not have you, save to do you honor;
and you may trust me. But trusting me, believe me in this: the thing
we call the Church and all its power and teachings seem verily to be
on the eve of a mighty change. What yesterday was accounted truth,
passes for doubtful to-day; it will be rank error to-morrow. I have
heard you read Dr. Luther’s books.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You have doubtless read how monastic vows are a denial of baptism,
being an insult to God, as if, after He had received us into His
Church to redeem us if we are worthy, we now try to bribe Him by an
excess of good works?”
“I have; but it is all strange. When fearful vows have been taken, by
whom can they be remitted?”
“By God, speaking to us in our hearts.”
“How can I know it is He that speaks, and not the Fiend?”
“I am but an ill theologian, Ilsa,” I said, laughing drearily. “I
would you could speak with Dr. Luther. He is the most wonderful man
in the world. The flash of his eye, the grip of his hand resolve all
doubts. Well,--what shall I say further, for we cannot stand at this
grille forever. Shall I bid Gunter give Trude more of Dr. Luther’s
books to pass to you? Is it quite safe?”
“The nuns are reading them,” she answered demurely, and then for the
first time her old roguish twinkle lit her eye. “I will tell you.
I have committed a fearful sin. Perhaps it will never be forgiven.
Yet it does not make me miserable. Old Father Anton, the convent
chaplain, mayhaps prompted by my aunt, asked me in confession ‘Have
you read any books of Luther the Heretic?’ and I answered very
boldly, ‘No.’ And so, I learn, answered many other of the younger
nuns. Do you think we are making the angels very sad?”
“Ah! Ilsa, Ilsa,” answered I, “the angels will gladly forgive you,
and you are making one sinner very glad; for ’tis the first steps in
such sweet heresies which lead to greater. Hear, then, what I, who
love you more than life, declare. Standing upon this rock, with the
blue sky of God above me, I say I will abide true to you till you
come to me on this earth as my honored bride, or our souls greet up
in heaven. I will not beset your path, I will put on you no shameful
entreaty nor violence, but as Jacob served seven years for his bride,
and they seemed to him but a few days, so will I serve the Cause
for you. For the Cause of Luther, which is God’s, shall triumph,
and that triumph shall make you free, and we shall ride into the
Regenstein together, wife and husband.”
As I spoke, the sound of the organ, and of women chanting, pealed
from the interior of the convent. We heard the noontime hymn to the
Virgin Mother.
“Ave Maria, angelorum dea:
Coeli rectrix, Virgo Maria!
Ave maris stella, lucens miseris
Deitatis cella, porta principis!”
“This is the service before the refection,” said Ilsa. “I must go at
once, or I shall be missed.”
I knelt on the muddy flags by the grille and she laid her hand on my
head.
“And I, Ilsa von Blankenburg,” she spoke a trifle shrilly, token of
her inner strain, “do promise that I will ever bear you on my heart,
will ever pray for you and for the Cause you say may set us free.
Yes, I will even dare to hope also. And do you, Walter, go forth
to your knightly battle, for Luther, and righteousness, and God;
a warfare nobler than those Crusades against the distant infidel,
on which once rode your ancestors and mine. And if the day ever
comes when I may join you as your honored bride, I am ready. And if
not--then is left to us the fair Hereafter.”
I rose. We kissed again, then joined hands and spoke in concert, “The
Lord watch between thee and me while we are absent, one from the
other.”
“Sister Ilsa! Sister Ilsa!” called a cracked voice from within;
“dismiss that greasy beggar and his tales. Has he bewitched you? The
service is half chanted.”
“I come immediately,” she answered.
Without more ado, she gathered her black robe around her and was gone
down the dark passage. I was left standing in the bleak roadway.
“Ei! my fine pilgrim,” cried the gate-keeper as I went down, “you
were well fed and gossiped by that Sister Ilsa, I warrant.”...
Late that night I had regained the Regenstein. After warming myself
at the roaring hearth fire I dismissed my servants, and clambered
alone up dizzy stairs and blind ladders to the topmost parapet of
the black donjon. Below me lay the vast pile of the sleeping castle,
and around spread the snow peaks, their frosted contours sparkling
back the innumerable stars. Not a sound of beast nor man, nor even
of the wind broke the awesome stillness. For many moments I stood in
profound thought, then I prayed, not kneeling, but aloud and lifting
up my hands to the great dark dome on high.
“Oh! God,” I prayed, “Thou God who by the stirring of my soul and the
word of Martin Luther hast plucked me out of the Italian paganism
and mire, who has made a man of me, set to do a man’s part, accept
this proffer of my uttermost powers even to do Thy will, not mine.
Nevertheless if it be possible, if it be that the Cause shall triumph
and men’s souls be redeemed from error and fear, grant that Thy mercy
descend on Ilsa von Blankenburg, for her need is great. If pain must
be, let it be mine to bear it, not hers. Yet if it be Thy will, let
the bondage which withstands our happiness vanish away.”
Then presently I prayed again.
“O Lord, I believe: help Thou mine unbelief!”
Gone was the lore of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Lucretius, and all
their peers; gone that accursed confidence in my own wit, wisdom,
and abilities; gone everything save a knowledge that I was an
insufficient, fallible, sinful man whose only hope was in the help of
Heaven. I went down from the tower, and sought my bed. The memorable
day ended with a peaceful, refreshing sleep.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] A name often given greedy begging monks and pilgrims.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ROAD TO WORMS
So back again to the labor for the Cause. Events were marching. At
Worms, the old Rhenish city, the Diet had met, and young Emperor
Charles and his princes were deliberating upon all the complex
affairs of the Holy Roman Empire. To Worms came two Papal nuncios in
their red and purple, Monsignori Caracciolo and Aleander, with many
demands from their Medici master, but chiefly requiring one great
“Christian act,” the surrender to condign punishment of the new
“monster,” “Arius,” “Mahomet,” whose other appellation was Martin
Luther.
Already Charles with his Flemish and Spanish advisers had shown their
hands. In the Low Countries where he ruled in person, bonfires of
the heretical books were blazing. But when Aleander came with his
request, objection met him. Before election Charles had made solemn
promise that no German should be laid under the “ban” without a fair
hearing, and who had tried Luther? The bland legate replied that “to
the Pope belonged the condemnation of heretics, and if _his_ paternal
mercy were satisfied, Holy Saints! would Cæsar and his princes appear
more hard to please than the Pope?”
The Emperor, however, was scarce convinced. He had, besides, other
questions to ask the reverend legates. Would the Pope confirm him
in the entire control of that most convenient engine of political
tyranny, the Inquisition in Spain? Would the Pope waive his claims
to Ferrara? Would he aid Charles in the threatened war with France?
Till these were answered the Emperor had no final decision as to
Luther, and besides, with one voice was not Germany,--peasants,
burghers, and ritters,--making itself heard; from the white Alps to
the blue Baltic, the great cry sounding,--“Let not Luther perish
without fair trial!” And Charles was no such fool as to be deaf to
that cry.
As for me, each time I returned to Wittenberg after riding post,
I would be mightily refreshed by the calm and cheer I found in
the little city. The much discussed friar was still moving about
his university routine. I can picture him touching his lute in
the evenings, or walking by morn in the wintry weather beside the
ice-girt Elbe. Friends and students went ever in and out the modest
convent. News good and bad was always discussed with the uttermost
freedom.
“I am very happy to-day,” he said once to a group of us, frowning
over some heavy news; “surely God is bringing us very near to
victory, or the Fiend would not find it needful to rage so horribly.”
Then in the long winter evenings I can see again his great quill
flying over the paper at a new polemic, and the next morning the
Wittenberg printers would be clanging their presses with redoubled
fury.
“Will Charles summon Luther to Worms?” Germany was asking. And
the millions who at first said “He must,” presently began more
confidently to say “He will.” But after that came another question,
“Will Luther go to Worms?” And there was hesitation even among
those who loved the Cause right well. For at Worms would be all the
puissance and majesty of Church and State, every hostile influence
that could be invoked to crush the heretic, every glitter and threat
of power invoked to overawe the peasant’s son who had ventured to
gainsay the dictates of the mighty. “If Luther goes to Worms,” so not
one, but many men told me, “he will either be sent to the stake, or
dazzled into a recantation. Better stay away, and let the ban of the
Empire issue.”
I knew that sober men were talking of carnal war. Franz von
Sickengen, greatest of the Rhine ritters, and Hutten’s friend,
who saw in Luther’s cause a noble pretext for warfare on the
prince-bishops his soul hated, had long since written him, “My
services, my lands, my person are at your summons.” And Hutten had
written, urging recourse to “swords, bows, javelins, and bombs.” “The
Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by
force,” so ran a favorite text in many mouths, but not in Luther’s. I
saw what he wrote to Spalatin, wise Frederick’s confessor, touching
such mad counsellings. “I do not wish that we fight for the Gospel
with fire and sword. By the Word the world has been subdued, by
the Word the Church has been upheld, and by the Word it will be
reformed.” And again touching the question of going to Worms, “I will
be carried to Worms if I cannot go well. If they intend violence, and
no doubt they do, my case is commended to the Lord. The same Lord
lives and reigns who preserved the three youths in the furnace of the
King of Babylon, and if He does not choose to preserve me, my head is
a small thing in comparison with the slaying of Christ. Amen.”
And now at last tidings came, ever more frequently, both from friends
and foes in the Rhinelands, as to the fury of the legates when
their hot demands met with no instant compliance, and the bitter
counter-complaints of the assembled princes at the persistence of
many confessed abuses in the Church, and of the endless negotiation
and recrimination. Finally came the issue to it all; an imperial
summons bidding Luther “come to Worms under safe-conduct, to give an
account to the Emperor and the Diet of his books and his doctrines.”
I was in Wittenberg when the imperial herald, Caspar Sturm, whose
official style was “Deutschland,” a noble-minded and lordly man,
arrived with the formal mandate. With many of Luther’s friends
I stood in the little study whilst he unrolled the formidable
parchment. At last Melanchthon spoke hesitantly.
“Dear Doctor, what will you do?”
“Do, Philip?” was the deep-voiced answer, “I will go!”
And then a silence fell on all of us. To the Wittenbergers it seemed
a time for sadness, even as to the disciples of Paul when they were
“sorrowing most of all for the words which he spoke, that they should
see his face no more.”
The time was short for the needful preparation. Luther must present
himself at Worms by the 16th of April. He could not set forth before
the second. I did my part in making everything ready. The good
burghers of the city of Wittenberg were glad to provide a covered
wagon and stout horses. After a painful consultation Luther picked
the three who should go with him,--Amsdorf, a young nobleman studying
at Wittenberg, Peter Swaven, and also a humble but very loyal friar,
John Petzensteiner. That I was to accompany need not be told,--at
least they had no means of preventing me. Tearfully and reluctantly
Melanchthon consented to stay. “For who can fill your place, my
Philip?” spoke his master, “and if you live when I die, the cause of
Christ will have lost but little.”
All Wittenberg was in the streets, when on the morning of April 2,
1521, the man who had spread the name of the city from Muscovy to
England was about to set forth. The professors of the university,
the town notabilities, and certain friendly students, awaited in the
convent garden as he came down from the upper chamber. His step was
elastic, his eye calm and clear. Melanchthon went beside him and
wrung his hand silently, every one drew back a little, and there
was a hush as if expecting he would say something, nor were they
disappointed.
“They have torn in pieces my honor and my good name. I have lost all
hopes of worldly greatness. Only my poor body is left. But as for my
soul, they shall not have that. He who is resolved to bear the word
of Christ to the world must expect death every hour. Therefore I am
well prepared.”
He took the brown cap from his head, and bowed right and left to the
company.
“Christ keep us all, good Christian neighbors and brothers of
Wittenberg, and bring us safe to heaven. And now--farewell.”
He entered the wagon. The others were already there before him. I
mounted my palfrey, with a few retainers to bring up the rear. Before
all rode Deutschland, his bright livery flashing, in his hand the
streaming red, black, and gold banner, blazoned with the double eagle
of the imperial Hapsburgs. The folk were in no mood for cheering.
Silence held us staying or going, while we passed down the long
Collegien-strasse, and even went by the gate where lay the mouldering
ashes of the Papal Bull; then a bent old woman sprang from the crowd
with a great wail.
“They are taking away the dear Dr. Martin! Dr. Martin, who taught my
lads to live honest, who saved my maids from shame! They will burn
him! They will burn him! We shall never see him more!”
Some one plucked her back roughly, all was too tense for gentle
measures.
“God bless you, good Dame,” spoke Luther clearly, as he rolled past
her. And for the first time I saw that his cheeks were wet with tears.
* * * * *
As we fared on that journey it was a marvel how the people of every
class and clan ran out to us. They came to meet Dr. Martin outside
the gates of their cities “to gaze upon the wonderful man,” said
the friendly chronicler, “who was so bold as to set himself against
the Pope and all who in opposition to Christ look upon the Pope as
a god.” At Leipzig, despite the memories of Eck’s disputation, the
magistrates received us right honorably. At Naumburg, on the third,
we had another great concourse. A lusty band of young men, wandering
students, apprentices, young petty nobles all came out to us, singing
one of Hutten’s latest battle songs:--
“Take up your own, your righteous cause
O nation brave and strong,
Will ye not listen to my words,
And help avenge this wrong?
The die is cast
And I stand fast,
Whatever be my fate:
The cards I’ll play
As best I may,
And then the end await.
“Although the cunning priests I know
Their snares for me have laid,
The man who knows his cause is good
Needs not to be dismayed.
I’ll play the game,
And all the same
E’en though they seek my life:
Brave nobles all,
On you I call,
Join Hutten in the strife!”
Swinging verses these, well fitted to make the blood spring faster,
but brave songs are not the whole of the battle. At this same
Naumburg I was present when a certain priest came to Dr. Luther
at the inn, bearing a picture of Savonarola, the prophet-martyr of
Florence, but my master looked at it unmoved. “It is Satan,” spoke
he, “who seeks by these terrors to hinder the confession of the truth
in the assembly of the princes.”
“Not so,” answered the friendly priest; “stand fast in the truth thou
hast confessed, and thy God will not forsake thee.”
At Erfurt, where Luther had been so long a humble student and friar,
he was met on the confines of the city territory by forty horsemen
led by the great Magister Crotus himself, and men laughed at their
fears and listened.
As we approached Eisenach, to our great dismay a fit of sickness
overtook the dear Doctor one evening. An anxious and prayerful night
it was for his friends, but a skilful bleeding, a cordial, and a
sound sleep made our master hale again. Thankfully we pressed forward.
But every day the danger seemed growing. Luther had the Imperial
safe-conduct suffering him to return to Wittenberg unharmed.
Excellent. But such a safe-conduct had the Bohemian heretic
John Hus possessed, and the Council of Constance had burned him
for all that. And Worms, every report bore, was swarming with
Papalists,--politically minded courtiers ready to barter Luther’s
life for Medici aid in Italy, fanatically minded Spaniards who
detested all things German, and all the countless agents of Rome
from legate down to valet, who were howling like wolves for blood.
And last but not least was the cold, hard young Emperor, who saw in
Luther mere insurrection against a time-honored authority it was his
duty to defend.
All these were against us. Often on the way I meditated “what ought
I to urge Dr. Luther to do? Will not the safe-conduct be violated?”
Then wild visions would come of a flight with my master to the
Regenstein, of calling all the Harzland ritters to my side, and of a
red raging war whereof only God could tell the end. Then I would look
upon that peaceful, smiling man, sitting on the straw, and bartering
innocent Latin saws with Amsdorf, and my wild visions would fade.
At Weimar came tidings of an imperial edict ordering the burning of
Luther’s books throughout Germany. The herald brought us the news
while we were dining at an inn, and well I remember his searching
interrogation.
“_Now_, Herr Doctor, will you proceed?”
“Yes,” answered Luther quietly, and in good color.
“The man rides to his death,” whispered young Swaven. “Beyond a doubt
the Emperor is prejudged against him.”
“I feel it,” I rejoined, “but what are we to do?”
He shrugged his shoulders. The horses were reharnessed. Luther was
the first to clamber into the wagon. For a while I rode gloomily
in the rear. Presently I heard Dr. Martin’s voice upraised, and I
caught up with the wagon to get his words. He was repeating with much
merriment the story of godless Peter Luders, a notable scholar of
the past generation who lost his character in Italy, and once when
very drunk had uttered heretical opinions. So at Basel they accused
him of denying the three members of the Trinity, to which he had
unblushingly answered, “Gladly will I confess _four_ if you will but
leave me alone.”
What could one say of such a man as our master? Whether God or fiend
were guiding him, the matter was out of our hands. I put my horse at
his speed, to race ahead to the next town and arrange for comfortable
quarters and livery.
CHAPTER XXVI
WE ENTER WORMS
On the fifteenth of April, 1521, we reached Oppenheim, having
crossed the Rhine, and being now only one stage from Worms. Time was
pressing. On the sixteenth the safe-conduct expired and any failure
to reach the Diet would leave Luther far from his sheltering Saxony,
and in the very claws of the adversary. The shouting, the cheering,
the perpetual “vivats” from the multitudes had been well, but I
knew how much the fair words and sympathies of women, peasants,
and students were worth against a file of imperial lanz-knechts
despatched to seize their hero. Destruction seemed alike before and
behind us now, but Dr. Martin had chosen the way, and I was past
urging “turn back.” Yet many a good friend was not so convinced as
was I that God was leading us, and at Oppenheim came a warning that
would have made a very Hannibal quail.
We were in the road winding up the steep crags toward the little city
when a messenger in the Elector of Saxony’s livery rode up to us,
and with him a Dominican friar, one Martin Bucer, a trusty friend
and preacher of the Cause. I will not repeat all that they said;
enough that they brought a letter from Spalatin, the Elector’s own
confessor, warning against going any farther. All kinds of perils
lurked at Worms. Aleander, the Papal Legate, was raging that “Luther
had enough heresy in him to warrant burning a hundred thousand,”
and that his following was the offscouring of Germany. As for the
safe-conduct, let Luther remember Hus’s fate, and let him heed also
the rumor[11] that the very influential Cardinal of Tortosa, the
Emperor’s tutor, had written to his one-time pupil, urging earnestly
“to hand the fellow over to the Pope for his deserts.”
“What, then, is it advised that Dr. Luther do?” I asked, whereat
Bucer answered that Von Sickengen’s formidable castle, the Ebernburg,
was not far off. Let him take refuge there, and negotiate at leisure.
I sat in my saddle moodily. The advice seemed good, the peril
undoubted, yet I knew that if my master turned aside from Worms
when almost at its portal his name and fame were marred through all
Germany. But while Amsdorf and I were silent, Dr. Martin dispensed
with our feeble wisdom. He shot his words right into the face of the
courier.
“Von Sickengen is a noble ritter. I thank him for his proffer. But he
lives by the sword and will die by the sword. God’s cause can prosper
without him. And as for me, _though there be as many devils in Worms
as there are tiles on the housetops, yet will I go there_. Drive
onward.”
That ended the debate. I knew that come good or come evil we would
see Luther at Cæsar’s judgment seat. It was with a mind very full of
thoughts that I rode out of Oppenheim the next morning. A marvellous
spring day was upon us. The little brooks and ditches were full of
water running merrily. One could almost hear the sap oozing in the
trees. The buds were just bursting, and all the boughs were in their
young green feather. In the fields the red-kerchiefed peasant girls
sang as they plied the mattocks or followed the plough, and overhead
in the limpid sky the larks sang back to them. I could see that Dr.
Martin was taking a delight nigh childish in the beauty of the hour.
“What a glorious day,” he kept saying with simplicity, “and how
rarely the birds sing. Ah! If we could count up the great charge God
is at, only to maintain the birds and other creatures. Verily it must
cost Him more than all the revenues of the King of France. If only I
understood how many gulden it takes to sustain the larks, would I not
be an incomparable master of theology!”
As for myself, however, my thoughts were wandering not a little,
even from my master and the Cause. That morning a letter, carefully
sealed, had been put in my hands by Gunter, with the curt remark that
“later if I wished he would tell how Trude had gotten it to him.”
Full secretly had I read, and thus it ran:--
“My aunt goes to Worms on business to the Pope’s legate touching
our order. Prompted by some saint she declares she will take me
as her companion. My brother also rides with us. Remember you are
my knight, and wear my gage. May God keep us.”
No name, no address. Both had been utterly needless. I hid the letter
in my bosom, but took it thence to kiss the writing a hundred times.
At last I had to conjure myself roundly to “play not the love-lorn
squire, but play the man.” And I plucked the letter forth no more.
But you will not blame me if I did not spend all my thoughts on how
to circumvent Monsignore Aleander at Worms.
“You, too, find this fine day makes you merry, Graf Walter,” said
Luther once during the morning ride, and later I discovered that he
had more than half divined the cause of my lightened spirits.
* * * * *
It was about noon, long after the frowning battlements, the
red-roofed steep houses, and the vast, many towered minster of Worms,
had been before our view, that the trumpeter above the gate blew
boldly on his horn,--signal to all the crowded city that the man who
had set all Germany by the ears had come to face his fate. Our little
cavalcade rolled over the drawbridge and into the shadow of the
gatehouse; Deutschland rode first, shaking out his great banner, then
the wagon with Luther and his three comrades, lastly myself with some
few friendly ritters who had galloped out from Worms to meet us. It
was dinner time, but by some art magic the tall gabled houses poured
out their thousands into the busy street. Honorable quarters had been
reserved for us at the House of the Knights of St. John, where the
residence of the Saxon Elector would be close at hand. So great was
the multitude Deutschland must needs lay about him with his baton to
win us a way.
As I rode onward slowly, I could but tell myself that all the world
had rushed together here for the Diet; save as we were privileged
guests I doubt if we could ever have hired lodgings. The streets were
full of blond Mecklinburgers and Pomeranians, dark Rhinelanders,
dapper-dressed Frenchmen, olive-faced Spaniards, small Italians.
Knights and clowns, peasants, burghers, and clerics were all elbowing
indiscriminately to get their first glance of “_him_,” whether they
called the newcomer saint or heresiarch. I saw an Italian valet
hanging close at our heels, and I was not surprised later to learn
that he was a servant of Aleander the Legate, sent to bring his
master particular word of the aspect of “Mahomet.” Surely if Luther’s
courage did not fail him, if he had a true word to say at Worms, he
could speak it so loud here that he could be heard by all the earth!
At the House of the Knights there did not lack a welcome from friends
and an abundance of wordy counsel. Two of the Saxon Electors’
intimate advisers were lodged at the same place. A good dozen of
us sat down to dinner together. There were a thousand things to
say,--what the Emperor thought, what each Elector thought, what
the delegates of the Free Cities thought, what the Pope’s legates
demanded, what Franz von Sickengen had threatened, what would be the
probable procedure to-morrow, etc., _ad infinitum_. And through it
all I could see Dr. Martin smiling sweetly yet soberly, answering
with a nod here, a brief word there, and keeping his own counsel.
“Has he not determined? Is he resolved to retract?” muttered Von Thun
the Counsellor in my ear half testily. “Surely he has not made all
this journey without some fixed intention?”
To which I could only answer, “He has never committed himself to me.”
“Pest take the man,” grumbled the testy though friendly politician;
“of all accursed things it is to be a theologian. ‘If you believe so,
I will concede so,’ they say, when what the Emperor will want is a
clear answer ‘_Sic_’ or ‘_Non_.’ Can we not make him understand?”
“Noble and excellent Counsellor,” answered I with assurance, “I do
not know what Dr. Luther will say, but I do know that he will give
such answer as will not leave you, me, nor any man in the world, in
doubt as to his meaning.”
I could do no more for my master that day. Events must shape their
course for a little. If there was more service which I could render,
it would come later when Cæsar had spoken. Leaving Luther in the
hands of his overzealous friends, I went to my own chambers, caused
Andrea to change my dress so that I would appear merely as an
inconspicuous ritter, and then went out unattended into the buzzing
streets. Never was there a more polyglot crowd even by the Venetian
Rialto. Spanish pikemen of the Imperial guard were declaiming in loud
Castilian against the insipidity of German wines; there were a goodly
number of giant-tall Swiss mercenaries in their bright, party-colored
clothes and great feathery-set hats, and ecclesiastics swarmed of
every rank, condition, and order. Mountebanks and hucksters of all
kinds of cheap and cheating wares, seemed everywhere, and many none
too prudish women. Carefree for the time, I wandered onward, catching
snatches of conversation, much amused momentarily by a grave debate
betwixt a Fleming and a Swabian as to whether Luther was able to fly
and to make himself invisible by the black art, yet often touched by
the manifest love and reverence with which vast numbers seemed to
mention my master’s name.
Knowing little of the winding streets, I let myself wander ever
onward, guided by fancy, until at last I was under the shadow of the
vast cathedral, and I saw sentries pacing with their halberds before
the portals of the wall around the bishop’s palace. Within I knew
lodged the Emperor and the Papal legates. I might have announced my
rank and demanded admission, but I was in no mood for playing the
courtier, and I was turning away to find what else might amuse me
in the city, when I came face to face with an Italian in a livery I
knew like my own, blue and gold cut after the manner of the Forlis.
Involuntarily I must have stopped and stared at him, the more so as
his face was familiar, in an uncertain way, and he, seemingly amazed,
also stood and gazed at me curiously, then recovering his wits more
nimbly than I, swept off his biretta with a profound bow.
“Allow me to assure you, Eccellenza,” spoke he in Italian, “that I am
now as always very devotedly at your service.”
“Diavolo! fellow,” I answered, wholly aback. “I do not have the joy
of your acquaintance.”
“The Conte di Palaestro does not remember then a certain evening at
the Vatican four years ago, the last evening I believe your Nobility
spent in Rome for some time, when it was my great and grievous
misfortune to be obliged, my own humble head being in jeopardy--”
“Good heavens, rascal,” cried I, my wits at last serving me; “you are
Ettore Orosi, the bravo!”
He bowed again with agile grace.
“Ettore Orosi, at that time a humble cavaliere of fortune, but
now, praised be Santa Maria di Fiesoli, a gentleman servitor in
the household of the Cardinal of Forli and that incomparable lady,
Madonna Marianna.”
“Forli, Marianna, are they here in Worms?”
“They arrived at the court three days since, Eccellenza, on an
unofficial mission from His Holiness. It was at once reported at
the palace that you were in the company of that much-debated friar,
Signor Lutherio, and Madonna Marianna straightway commissioned me to
ascertain your lodging place, and how she might communicate with you.
You see I have been unexpectedly fortunate.”
I own that for once in my life I was utterly at a loss what to do or
to answer.
Both Marianna and Ilsa were to be in Worms!
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Quite authenticated by history.--EDITOR.
BOOK III
THE VICTORY
CHAPTER XXVII
’TWIXT GABRIEL AND LUCIFER
He beckoned me to follow and I made no resistance. Possibly I was
unwise, but how scant had been the moment for reflection! In any
case, I meditated, a German count of the Empire was not to be made
away with at the Imperial Diet itself, even by such a personage as
the Cardinal di Forli. Besides, a little tingle was going through my
veins; come good, come evil, I was about to see Marianna. I stepped
on boldly even when an inner voice prompted me, “turn back.” Orosi,
smiling fulsomely, led the way past the unquestioning sentinel
into the interior of the episcopal palace. It was a huge rambling
structure. As I penetrated one gray courtyard after another I seemed
leaving Germany behind me, and stepping, with incredible rapidity,
back into the Southland. The faces I saw were all dark and olivine,
all Italian or Spanish. Above the gateways were festooned the banners
of Naples, Palermo, Valencia, Cordova, Seville and a dozen other
southern cities ruled by the Emperor. I heard the Tuscan and Sicilian
dialects of Italy, as well as the differing tongues of Castile and
Aragon. The armor of the mustachioed sentry at an inner gate was
indubitably from Toledo. And now I began to pass courtiers all in
elegant lace and silk garments that might have graced the court of
Ferrara or Mantua. Verily if _these_ were folk of Kaiser Karl I knew
the case of Luther was prejudged already!
But Orosi led onward without letting me tarry to analyze my
sensations. We were at a doorway before which a pair of valets in
the Forli livery squatted on the pavement killing their time with
dice. They leaped up very nimbly, and their caps came off with abject
bows at the upraised finger of my conductor. Orosi guided me at once
into a dim hall, lighted by high and heavily curtained windows, and
motioned to a spacious armchair.
“Eccellenza, if you will but deign to repose yourself a little, I
will at once seek his Eminence and Madonna. They did not of course
expect your fair advent so speedily, but I am sure you have not long
to wait.”
Before I could answer, I heard the heavy tassels of the arras
clicking behind him; I was alone, alone waiting Marianna.
The chamber was a veritable segment of Italy. Forli had evidently
travelled with all necessary furniture to make himself at home.
The chairs were of dark wood, with elegant Florentine carving, and
luxurious taffeta upholsteries; the rugs were from Constantinople,
the walls were hidden by a series of tapestry cartoons depicting the
taking of Carthage by Scipio the Younger. A genuine Roman brazier
charged with charcoal sent off its fumes in one corner, dispelling
the springtime chill. A Venetian lamp, swung from silver chains over
my head, sent a faint ruby gleam through its dome of red crystal.
There were books on the table; they proved to be a set of Poggio’s
_Facetiae_, and kindred free and merry stories, charmingly bound
in white and purple vellum. The odor of the brazier, the dimly
mysterious light, the looming of the vague figures on the cartoons,
the red twinkling from the lamp, all produced for an instant an
effect nigh intoxicating. I threw myself into the cushioned chair,
and felt old memory and habits of mind surging back upon me like the
billows cast up by an ever advancing tide of ocean.
Either because I was not expected or because of design I was held
some slight time waiting. At last in a distant chamber I heard a
step. Instantly all my senses quivered. I knew I was being profoundly
affected, albeit very differently from the manner that other step
had moved me when I waited in beggar’s rags at the cold grille by
Quedlinburg convent. Suddenly it came over me how even now I was very
shabbily clad, and what a mean impression I must make upon any one
beholding me. I was execrating all the luck which had involved me in
this immediate adventure, when the tapestry parted; Marianna di Forli
came straight into my presence.
She wore a light blue cendal gown that fell straight down from her
shoulders, the height of art in its simplicity. A thin gold chain was
her girdle. Her only ornament was a large brooch on her shoulder,
but the brooch was set with a Greek antique cameo of vast beauty and
price. In the great coil of her dark hair she had set a single white
spring flower. In that twilight her face seemed to stand out as a
thing self illumined, diffusing its own white light.
“Gualtiero!” she cried, in her musical native tongue, “Gualtiero! I
have missed you so long. Oh! blessed, blessed hour to bring you!”
She held both her hands to me, opening her arms wide; but the
sight of her, the sound of her voice, had snapped the spell that
momentarily bound me. Very deliberately, with studied courtesy I fell
on one knee, took her right hand coldly to my lips, and kissed it
formally. Then I rose and stood with bowed head, but at safe distance.
“You must pardon me, Madonna,” said I, “if this interview slightly
overwhelms me; only a very few hours since have I entered Worms,
and it was by the merest fortune that I rambled out by the palace
and was confronted by Orosi. I consented that he lead me to you,
perhaps without considering whether an interview would lead to mutual
happiness or the reverse.”
She drew back, and the muscles of her neck seemed to twitch.
“Your words are cold as your northern wind, Gualtiero, all the spark
and fire is gone out of them. Can three years away from Italy change
so much? destroy habit, thought, memory? Do you not remember the
Corso, and the Vatican gardens, and the boats on the Tiber, and the
Carnival, and the fiestas of roses, and--”
I folded my arms across my breast.
“I forget none of them, Madonna.”
“Santo Spirito, and do you never long for them? Are you turned all to
ice?”
“Not quite,” I replied gently.
“Then I,” and her eyes shot fire, “demand in the name of that passion
which once you will not deny blazed swift and hot,--what marvel has
wrought this change?”
“You will never understand, Madonna,” I answered slowly, “not though
my speech went far into the night. The North has claimed me; I am of
my father’s world and not of my mother’s. The North has claimed me,
and the Cause, which is so great.”
“The Cause? I cannot understand.”
“I said you could not. Once you laughed at us Germans, called us
winebibbers and fools; we are stirring now. Once you mocked at our
friar Martin Luther; he is giving the Monsignori gloomy evenings now.
Great things are coming to pass, and greater things will follow.
Here in Worms we may hear words that will be remembered so long as
men read books; for the Cause is moving to triumph, and he who aids
therein is aiding even God.”
“Your words are Italian,” she said, misdoubtingly, “but your thought
still is all hid. What is this Cause? explain.”
“The Cause is the Word of God as spoken by Luther, and from him
caught by the world.”
She threw her hands over her head and laughed. The laugh grated. It
was scornful and evil.
“At last! at last! Well, I could have thought as much. Still
bewitched by that babbling demon of an excommunicate friar. My father
and I will have to learn how to disenchant you.”
“In that case you must prove wiser than Merlin, for I swear to you,
never went cavalier more earnestly on his crusade than I on this.”
She paused one shrewd instant. Some instinct told me that she was
bidding herself not to press a dangerous point, but to seek other
means of vantage.
“Come, Gualtiero,” she resumed, holding out one hand winningly,
“three years is a long time. At Palaestro we parted in a quarrel,
let us not meet again only to renew it. We have always liked each
other better after quarrelling. Do you remember the fearful war we
had because I believed you had given those pearls to that Carlotta
di Empoli, and how we were vastly more devoted than ever, after
the wretched thing was made up? Yes? Well then, here we will sit
together. These cushions are filled with silk floss from Parma. Old
Cardinale di Piombo swears there is nothing more comfortable, and
surely he is the softest liver in the whole conclave. After all, what
is it to me if you wish to run after a heretic friar or the very
Maestro Diavolo himself if but your ‘Cause’ does not keep you in this
vile Germany. O _Miseria_! But what a dress you have on! Very foul
and worn even for this dreadful country. You have already paid for
your folly towards the heretic by being brought to poverty?”
“I have still sufficient revenues,” said I dryly, not without inward
meditation as to whether Marianna’s attitude would alter if I avowed
myself poor. “I am wearing this dress simply to avoid remark upon the
streets.”
“Happy relief then to my fears! Now I will ask you, as if you were at
the confessional, and do you answer. Are you married?”
“No.”
“Are you betrothed?”
“No.”
“Are you in love?”
I could have cut her tongue out. I saw heavy disadvantages either in
telling the truth, or framing any reasonable manner of a lie.
“You need not press that question, Marianna,” I returned sharply.
“But you equivocate, proof enough you are truly in love. Fie, do not
think I am going to be angry. Every one must amuse himself. Declare
the lady.”
“I have forbidden you to interrogate.”
“_Buono!_ only one question, then; is she that Ilsa--such I swear
was the name--whose father held the castle close to yours? Am I not
right? You are blushing.”
“The lady whereof you ask has entered the convent. As a nun she is
beyond all our discussions.”
Marianna’s hands floated out and her long fingers moved in a gesture
as if she were untangling spider webs.
“Oh, simple, simple Gualtiero! Do you not think I can see through you
as through yonder goblet of Venetian glass? Do you think that while
you have been running about Germany for the sake of your mad heretic,
I have not been informed by a dozen correspondents about you. Did
not many letters report ‘The Graf von Regenstein, rumor has it, made
offers of marriage to Ilsa von Blankenburg, but she rejecting his
proffer has entered the convent?’ And lo! now by your own silence
and blushes you confess to the secret that you, _you_ who preach to
us Italians of your serious purpose and your zeal for your ‘Cause,’
are actually engaged in the quest of a nun!”
I let her wander on even farther, while I slowly readjusted my wits.
“Yet you might spare your blushes, Gualtiero. Wiser and cleverer
men than you have loved nuns, yes, and been none the worse for it.
The nephew of his one-time Holiness, Urban the Sixth, had such an
intrigue, and the indulgent Pope actually issued a dispensation to
him and let him marry the wench. You might get the same, though if
truth be told, you have not ingratiated yourself with the Vatican
lately. Still if you have kept your fortune--”
But here I rose to my feet.
“Marianna di Forli,” spoke I, and my voice shook, “if you would
converse with me as friend and not as foe, do not let the name of
that nun again cross your lips. What we are to each other and what
we will be to each other is something so high, so holy, so ineffable
that never in any tongue I can speak could you learn to understand
me. I have no intrigue with the lady you have so lightly named, and I
forbid you to discuss her further.”
“Then Dante sighs hopelessly from afar for his Beatrice,” said she,
demurely; “very good, I merely wished to show that I was not playing
the part of jealousy.”
“What part you are playing, Madonna,” I replied sourly, “I confess
is to me quite hid, the more as by your own confession you have kept
a marvellously sharp watch upon my doings. You know, then, that I
am utterly committed to the cause of that Wittenberg friar whom the
Church, with paternal benignity, is seeking to consign to the flames.
You know that I broke with you finally at Palaestro. What now are you
seeking?”
She looked up at me steadily, striving to catch me with her glorious
eyes. If mortal could have been ensnared by a pagan goddess, I were
lost hopelessly.
“Hear then, Gualtiero,” spoke she, and her voice rose and sobbed
like some plaintive æolian harp, “hear then, I come to save you from
yourself.”
“Myself? Am I my own enemy?”
“Your own worst enemy, Gualtiero. Your own noble qualities betray
you. You were nurtured in Italy, but a false loyalty to your
father’s last injunctions held you to a destructive pride in your
German ancestry. Because you dreamed you found something noble in
the utterances of that Wittenberg heretic, you also dreamed it was
your duty to defend him. Even as your forefathers deemed it noble to
toss their lives away against the infidel, one man against twenty,
so you, again hopelessly beset, have allowed your fine chivalry to
ruin you. You dwell in a world of dreams, of gossamer hopes, of
unrealities. You have followed this friar even to Worms. Then your
foam bubble will burst. What will you find? A heretic’s bonfire, your
friends’ favor forfeited, your fortune imperiled, your body and soul
jeopardized by the ban of the Church. And from all this I--I, who
have been so much to you, will save you yet.”
“I thank you for your solicitude, Madonna,” was my rejoinder. I
confess when she spoke of “unrealities” I thought of our life at
Palaestro, and could scarce suppress a smile.
“You are not grateful--now. Ah! I understand that very well. But you
will thank me hereafter. Come”--she caught at my sleeve, “sit once
more, side by side as in the olden days. Let us pretend these are the
Vatican gardens, and we are under the roses by the Pope’s belvedere.
Far away are they not, but we will see them again. You will not, you
will not refuse even this?”
Her voice trembled, but I stood before her obdurate. I remembered
that other hour at Mainz when honor spoke one voice, and Marianna
another, and Marianna had prevailed. But, thank God, I was stronger
now. She was looking up at me with every manner of entreaty springing
out of her eyes,--the entreaty of a Cleopatra saying to Antonius,
“Choose now, Rome or me?” But I, looking upon her, yet beyond her,
saw other figures whom she might not see, a figure in the veil of a
nun, a figure in the cowl of a friar. “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
were the words that almost crossed my teeth, but I would not wound
too harshly. I only removed her hand gently from my sleeve and
motioned her away.
“You talk of that which can never be, Madonna,” I said. “I am sorely
grieved that you will still live in memory.”
“In memory?” she cried, her voice now rising almost to a shriek, “in
memory? And can the memory of a Roman woman ever die? Because I have
laughed and lived merrily do you think that I have never loved you?
Oh! Santa Maria! one need not turn nun every time one has a broken
heart. Curse me, beat me, flay me, slay me, do not say you will quit
me forever!”
Alas for Marianna! even as she cast herself at my feet in a paroxysm
of tears, I was reflecting, “How far is this real, how far the
actress?” This scene however I well knew could not be prolonged. With
a pitilessness I did not wholly feel, I drew myself up haughtily.
“Noble lady,” I spoke distantly; “If in the past I have erred by
giving you friendship and more than friendship, I am heartily
repentant. The wrong that I may have done to you I may never be
able to efface. So heaven orders things--that much of evil cannot
be undone, however much the doer would. If you have had your bitter
hours in past years, believe me I have had mine. Believe me, too, God
has laid His comforting hand upon me and given me a peace and hope
such as not Filelfo or Chrysoloras or Porphyry or Plato or any other
of those philosophers we worshipped at Rome could give. I have chosen
my path with open eyes, and I follow it boldly. It may lead through
the sunlight, may lead under only the starlight, nay clouds and
darkness may wrap thick about me. The path is still before me. I will
follow. For you I will ever crave that peace which neither the world
nor the Church as you know it can give. Curse you I will not, and I
will remember you often and not with hate, but for the final time I
say it, your path you must follow, and leave me free to follow mine.”
I bowed ceremoniously and moved toward the door. She lifted her face
towards me; it was struggling with entreaty.
“Never, never, never will I give you up!” she cried, then fell in a
heap upon the chair.
Without more adieus I thrust aside the tapestries, and strode past
many gazing menials, much amazed to see a shabbily clad man burst
from the inner apartments of the Cardinal. Fortunately no one strove
to halt me. In a moment I was past the last sentry, and in the
street, lighted by the last sunshine of the waning afternoon. Italy
and all its strange visions seemed vanished behind me. I heard the
pompous Geheimrat of some Pomeranian princeling cursing in broadest
Low German at the inattention of his varlets. The very oaths seemed
good to hear. I strode over to a convenient beer house, and quaffed a
stein of good brown Nürnberger.
“Realities?” I spoke to myself; “here are the realities,--the life to
live and the death to die. I have escaped from Merlin and his house
of dreams.”
* * * * *
The crowds in the street had hardly thinned. Never, save at the
Venice carnivals, had I seen greater multitudes. “Luther,” “Luther,”
seemed on every tongue.
“He will recant,” I heard an earnest-faced young student declaiming
to a fellow; “Holy God strengthen him, but he will recant. Pope,
Emperor, princes, priests are all against him. Flesh and blood
are not made to endure such things, he will retract all his books
to-morrow.”
“And yet,” answered the second student more confidently, “when I
caught his eye this noon, I said, ‘that is not the face of one whom
fiend or man can frighten.’ I still hope he will stand fast.”
“Ay, so I pray every hour,” rejoined the first somberly; “for the day
he retracts is the blackest day that has ever set for Germany, after
such a dawn of hope of better things! But--”
Here we were swept asunder and I caught no more of their hopes or
fears. A moment later I was behind two black-cloaked Dominicans.
Easily enough one seized the thread of their talk.
“I tell you, Sebaldus, this hideous leniency has already nigh
wrecked the Church. A few good faggots two years ago should have
ended everything. But first Caïetanus tarried, then the Pope, and
now finally the Emperor. The blessed Dominic grant we see the end of
this Anti-Christ to-morrow. Will they execute him here or send him to
Rome?”
“The legates Aleander and Forli have done their uttermost to have him
clapped under arrest already, but alas! the Emperor hesitates.”
“Hesitates? Great God! as a Christian prince how can he hesitate in
his duty?”
“Why, my dear brother, he has most unfortunate scruples about that
matter of a safe-conduct which he issued.”
“And _he_ hesitates to violate it? As if faith were to be kept with
Turks and heretics! Let him remember how Kaiser Sigismund piously
let the safe-conduct he gave to Hus be set aside, for as the King of
Aragon then said, ‘Faith is not to be kept with those who have not
kept faith with God.’”
“Aptly spoken, like a true doctor of the Church. And--heaven
grant--even if the Emperor prove over-scrupulous, there will be a
short way found with the wretch. I am told that the Cardinal of Forli
said--”
But here, just as I would have given fifty gulden for the rest of
their talk, the two turned down an unfrequented lane, whither it was
impossible for me to follow undetected.
The conversation, however, made me exceeding thoughtful. Clearly all
that I might do for Luther was not at end. If there were any pious
projects against Luther entertained by his Eminence of Forli, it was
not for me to ignore them. And as for Orosi, I was certain that the
redoubted bravo was not serving the Cardinal simply as postilion. I
therefore quickened my steps back toward the house of the Knights
of St. John. The day was fading into twilight, the hucksters and
merchants were illuminating their shops and booths with innumerable
red torches that cast a flickering radiance upon the moving crowds,
and gave the streets of Worms more the aspect of a fête than of a
sedate grave German city. I was almost again at our quarters when the
folk in the narrow street were thrust aside by the passing of a small
cavalcade. I saw a few mounted retainers, a stately ritter in half
armor, and behind him, with sweeping white robes, a lady abbess upon
her palfrey. Behind the abbess rode several women, hooded and cloaked
in black.
“Give way, honest people,” cried the leading rider; “way for
their High Nobilities the Abbess of Quedlinburg and the Graf von
Blankenburg!”
The crowd opened good naturedly, but a lumbering vintner’s cart in
the street ahead made very slow progress. The cavalcade fell to a
walk. As for me, I stopped for an instant like a man stark mad, and
then guided more by instinct than reason, kept pace with the little
company, edging nearer until I was close to the women who followed
the abbess. I had not long to seek. Would I not have known to pick
that rider on the darkest night and amid a hundred?
I was almost against her side-saddle, and the noise of the street
rose in a babel hum around me, when I suddenly spoke in a voice low
and clear.
“Ilsa, here I am.”
Under the black cape there was a startled quaking and rustling, but
was I not proud of my Lady, when with hardly an instant’s hesitation
came the softly spoken answer.
“I am trusting you to do nothing foolish, Walter.”
“Your trust is safe,” I answered; “I am guarding Dr. Luther. But is
Trude in your company?”
“She is.”
“Then since her father is with me, all is well. I have your letter.”
The wagon had been turned from the way. “Forward!” came the shout. I
heard the riders ahead slap their horses. From under the black cape
stole a white hand; there was just the chance for me to touch the
tips of the fingers. Ilsa’s palfrey caught the stride of the others.
I sprang back, spattered with mud. The whole had been done so quickly
Abbess Theckla could have known nothing. And so in one afternoon,
almost in one hour, I had words with two women who were making or
marring my life. I stood marvelling at my strange fortune, and still
more at the strange manner of our meeting--so different, so utterly
different.
On turning in at the house of the Knights of St. John I told myself
it would be very easy later to ascertain the lodging place of so
important a personage as the Abbess of Quedlinburg, but for the
moment I had enough else to busy me. Poor Dr. Luther was still
beset by a host of well intentioned friends thrusting upon him all
manner of bad advice. There could be no doubt that the Emperor had
formed an unfriendly opinion of him and that more than half of Worms
expected him to retract at least the more extreme of his writings.
“If you will merely recall two or three of the pamphlets,” I remember
a Saxon councillor urging patronizingly, “say the ‘Babylonish
Captivity’ and that violent last ‘Letter to the Pope,’ why it’s quite
possible there will be very little urged against the others.”
And I, knowing Dr. Luther, could see the quiet twinkle in his eyes,
serious, yet not unmerry as he took all these friendly words in
silence. At last he looked around, and on his face was the old smile
so familiar in Wittenberg.
“Ach! dear Christian friends. There is a good verse of Scripture,
spoken I think for such poor wights as I, in cases like these ‘When
they bring you unto the magistrates and powers, take ye no thought
how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say, for the Holy
Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.’”
“But reverend Doctor,” cried Von Thun, “it cannot be you are without
a well considered course of action?”
“Noble Privy Councillor,” answered my master, “Years ago when I lay
very sick at Erfurt, when I was only a young student, and I was in
great fear of death, there came to me an old priest, pious and good,
who spoke, saying, ‘Take courage. You shall not now die, our God
will yet make you an instrument for the comforting of many.’ And by
God’s mercy, that prophesy has not proved vain. Nor do I think,”
and his voice rose a little, “I have yet reached the end of that
service appointed unto me. When I stand before Cæsar, I shall, heaven
willing, say that which will make no friend of mine ashamed.”
Nothing more could any man get out of him. Seeing that he was surely
weary, Amsdorf and I at length sent the busybodies away. I stationed
Gunter, Adolf, and Andrea, well armed, around Dr. Luther’s chamber,
and myself lay down in the next room with a ready sword and pistols.
Nothing, however, disturbed us that night. Fatigued myself with all
the strange sights and vicissitudes, I slept soundly, interrupted
only by the rumbling of the city cart that coursed the streets after
midnight, to carry home the topers left sprawling in the gutters
after a riotous evening.
CHAPTER XXVIII
BEHOLD, HE PRAYETH
On the afternoon of the 17th of April, Luther was conducted before
the Diet to answer to the charges of heresy. The morning was passed
by my master very calmly, reading, writing, and actually going from
his lodgings to visit, console, and administer the sacrament to a
sick Saxon knight. It was four o’clock in the afternoon when the
peasant-born friar, who had set knights, bishops, electors by the
ears, with cardinals, Pope, and Emperor to boot, was conducted before
the assembled estates of the Holy Roman Empire. But of this first
assembly, and all who were there and what passed, I omit the details,
seeing that this audience before the Diet was but the prelude to the
real ordeal.
Of all the friends and foes who looked so curiously on him that
day, I think all but a few were sorely amazed at his conduct. “He
will recant,” or “He will stand firm,”--one saying or the other had
been on every tongue. But I, and one or two more, who had communed
with him often, were not so surprised. Well did we understand how
Martin Luther looked upon this audience as the crisis of his life,
and, trusting none the less in heaven, was not the least resolved to
blunder through lack of temporal circumspection and worldly wisdom.
So when the “Official General,” who conducted the interrogations
for the Emperor, having put the preliminary questions, asked if he
would repudiate or withdraw his books alleged heretical, and when all
ears were bent for a sturdy “yea” or “nay,” on the contrary, Luther
in mild voice answered that the matter was one of great moment
and touched upon “the salvation of souls.” If he spoke without due
consideration he might be over-bold, run into sore peril, and incur
God’s wrath; therefore he entreated time for deliberation, “that he
might answer the interrogation without injury to the Divine Word, or
peril to his own soul.”
There was a buzz among the princes, a whispering betwixt the Emperor
and Aleander, the lowering Papal legate. With some asperity the
Imperial spokesman made answer that Luther surely knew wherefore he
had been summoned and what might be asked of him; nevertheless, that
he might have fair play, four-and-twenty hours were given him. Then
he must be ready with his answer.
After that came adjournment and more whisperings, and I knew that
Luther had neither lost a friend nor conciliated an enemy. Almost as
I was passing out I heard the rumor that Charles had said “This man
will never make a heretic of me.” But the multitude were otherwise
minded. A great cheering throng followed us back to our lodgings,
there were _vivats_ and _bravoes_, and once a shrill woman’s voice,
“Blessed is the womb that bare thee!” Best of all, soon after our
coming to the house of the Knights, the cortège of no less a person
than the mighty Landgraf von Hessen himself halted before it, and
youthful Prince Philip dismounted to wring my master’s hand, and to
say in parting, “Dear Doctor, if you are in the right, so may the
Lord God help you.”
Then the darkness sent the crowds away, and even the officious Saxon
councillors had the grace to refrain from thrusting in their presence.
“Well,” complained one busy body, “your Wittenberg friar may be a
mighty theologian, and well able to refute a whole Church Council,
but has he no pity on us all? Must Diet and Emperor twirl their
thumbs with curiosity whilst he makes up his mind?”
“Be graciously patient, noble Geheimrat,” spoke I, bowing him toward
the door; “you will be amply satisfied on the morrow.”
“Heaven grant it,” he fumed, going out, and I turned back into the
room where, very characteristically, my master was bent over the
broad table, a candle at either elbow. He wrote rapidly, but soon
threw down the sheet so that Amsdorf and myself could read the broad,
sprawling hand. It was a letter to Guspianus, a literary friend in
Vienna, in which he told briefly the events of the day, and then
clearly written at the end stood out these words, “_But I shall not
withdraw a single jot, Christ helping me_!”
Amsdorf and I handed back the paper, having perused in silence.
“Ei! my friends,” cried Luther, leaning back in his chair, and
stretching his great broad arms above his head, “have you nothing to
say, no warnings, no prudence, like all these other good folk?”
Amsdorf looked at me, and seeing I was tongue-tied, answered:--
“Dear Doctor, we have long since committed you into God’s keeping.
Wisdom and words we have not of our own.”
Luther arose, and without speaking a syllable, embraced us both
silently,--the hearty warm embrace of an elder brother. His face
twitched a little. We knew that his hour was come. Silently we
returned the clasp and took our leave, realizing that for him
solitude was now the truest refreshment. As I passed out I could
see his dark figure outlined against the candle-light, and already
unconscious of our hearing he was repeating the words of Ezekiel of
old.
“Behold I the Lord have made thy face strong against their faces, and
thy forehead strong against their foreheads; as an adamant harder
than flint, have I made thy forehead. Fear them not, neither be
dismayed.”
“Amsdorf,” spoke I, my own heart welling over, “though we live a
thousand years we shall not hear or see things greater than shall
come to pass to-morrow.”
“Can you sleep to-night?” he asked.
“Impossible,” I returned, and we sat down together in our own
chamber, and tried desperately to while away the hours by a game of
chess. Once or twice I listened at Dr. Luther’s door. Once I heard
him repeating the Scripture, once I heard the notes of his lute
touched softly, to some gentle wailing lay of his Saxon hills, and I
knew that he was trying, as so often, “to rout the devil” with music.
The clock struck midnight when our game was disturbed by a gentle
knock at our door.
“May I enter, Eccellenza?” Andrea was asking, and glided in before I
could answer “yes.”
He had his stiletto drawn, and his eyes were gleaming like jet beads.
Instantly I sprang to my feet, whipping out my own rapier.
“Danger?” I demanded.
“Si, Signore. Great danger to Messere Luther. Heretic he may be, I do
not know,” he crossed himself, “but he is your friend. That is enough
for Andrea. The Conte has seen Ettore Orosi?”
“A thousand fiends, yes!”
“Then believe me, Ettore Orosi and four others like him, an Italian,
with three Germans,--greasy oafs,--are to be under Dottore Luther’s
window ere many minutes. And then--prut!”
“Fellow, fellow,” cried I, “how did you know this? It is impossible
that the Pope’s legates should stoop to such a deed even against a
heretic. The Emperor’s wrath would be terrible.”
“His Holiness’s legates? oh, no, Signore! Their pious hands will be
very clean. Ettore Orosi and his band do this independently, from
pure love of Holy Church. Perhaps there may be temporal rewards for
their zeal; but these will be later. Yet believe me, it has not
been for nothing Andrea has been hanging around the palace kitchens
all the evening, and making himself friendly to the comely scullery
maids.”
“We must summon help,” spoke Amsdorf with a hand upon my arm.
“Help?” I replied, “with Gunter and Adolf within reach, with Andrea
here, and you and I hale and strong? Not so. If Ettore Orosi desires
a swift road to hell, we are well able to give him the post-horses.”
“At least, let me caution Dr. Luther,” and he started for the inner
door, but I detained him.
“Dr. Luther has battles enough to fight to-night, without this one.
We will fight it for him. Come.”
Already the indefatigable Andrea had roused my two watch dogs. Adolf
and Gunter came in, cursing softly, but with their weapons, and we
held a hasty council-of-war. The information which Andrea had wormed
out of an over-talkative serving-maid gave no clear notion of the
nature of the attack, but we could guess its method. To penetrate to
the apartments of Dr. Luther from the side of the house fronting upon
the street would necessitate forcing several well-barred doors, and
was to the last degree impossible. But on the other side his windows
opened upon a small garden surrounded by a wall readily scaled by
active men, and behind this wall ran a dark narrow alley giving the
easiest imaginable access.
Our deliberations were brief and effective. Leaving my second valet
and Adolf’s nephew, a tall, burly Regensteiner, to guard the inner
house, the rest of us took our way quietly by a back passage to the
little garden where a few bushes in the corner made a sufficient
covert against the wall. We were armed; even the pacific Amsdorf, who
was no feeble man physically, had accepted a sabre and pistol. I was
similarly accoutered, but Andrea insisted that I pull on my ring mail
of proof, a splendid piece of Florentine armorer’s craft, that made
me almost as impregnable as Achilles. Andrea himself had only his
long stiletto, but I knew he could use that to greater effect than
a Moor his scimitar. As for Gunter and Adolf, in addition to their
ponderous swords, they tugged along arquebuses crammed with enough
bullets to mow down a small army. In silence we took our stations;
they whispered briefly as to our respective parts in the impending
drama. Nothing was left but the most trying part of the ordeal,
silence.
It was a weird enough and uncanny situation, after the glow of
excitement began to wane, as I squatted in silence with my fellows on
the damp chill earth, peering into the dark, and straining my ears
for those first sounds which would betoken the assassins. The night
was not absolutely black. Heavy banks of clouds moved across the
moon, which occasionally peered out with a yellow half-orb, and sent
a flying gleam of light across the garden wall. Again the shadows
would become so black as to be almost impenetrable. The wind had
shifted to the north and sang down the Rhine valley damp and chill,
making me glad I had drawn an extra doublet over my ring shirt;
and even then betwixt mingled cold and excitement I found my teeth
a-chatter. Tall and dark above us loomed the lofty roofs and the dim
outlines of the sombre chimneys. Once or twice I heard a clattering
of the storks far up upon the eaves. We waited in cold, impatience,
and discomfort, a time that seemed interminable. Presently the
minster clock boomed “one,” and I heard the city watchman go
clattering down the street with his staff and lantern, chanting his
“Cover your fires and bar your doors,” as if any honest man would
be awake at that hour to hear him. Other life there seemed nowhere,
save in Dr. Luther’s apartment, where a rushlight and candles still
burned, and where once or twice across the open lattice I saw his
figure pass.
I was beginning to misdoubt the whole business, and to tell myself
that it was folly to imagine that even Italians would be mad enough
to outrage the German nation by trying to murder its hero on the eve
of his crisis day. I was edging over to Andrea to seek again for
his story, and to pin him down to some proof that we were waiting
for anything more perilous than a fine ague, when Adolf--whose wise
old ears were like a lynx’s--gave a low “hist!” Instantly I _knew_,
rather than heard, that some one was moving down the alley behind
us. We clinched our weapons, while I felt--thanks to my quickened
heart beats--that every sense of cold had vanished. We heard feet
approaching stealthily, I soon judged of a party of about five men.
The strangers were conversing in whispers, but it was long ere we
caught a word. Right past us, with only the thin brick garden wall
between, they went quietly as cats, but quite audibly. They actually
passed beyond the house of the Knights, and I was thinking they were
not our expected guests, when a warning word from one of the party
halted the rest.
“Turn around,” commanded a muffled voice, “you have gone beyond the
house.”
“You are sure it is this one?” asked another, in accents betraying a
very poor command of German.
“Quite sure. I went down the alley three times to-day. I remember
the chimneys. Dr. Luther’s chambers are on the first floor, directly
against the garden.”
“_Buono!_ Signore,” spoke the non-German again, and I surely
recognized Orosi, “then it is over the wall and into the house. Ecco!
I will display to you the deed of a real virtuoso, of a true son of
Italy. Your clumsy Tedesci shall behold and admire!”
“We will admire you on the gallows, you long-tongued magpie,” growled
the other, “if you do not keep a quieter tongue, or I, Hans Lange,
am no prophet. I am well paid for this task, or I would drop it even
now. Quick now! _Frisch!_ Up and over; but silent as tombstones.
There’s no time for mumbling.”
Adolf and Gunter had silently set the wheel-locks of their
arquebuses, and now levelled at the crest of the wall, clearly
visible, to take the first cutthroat as he should appear, but I
knocked up their barrels.
“Let them in,” I muttered; “all are then at our mercy.”
In an instant a tall figure stood on the narrow parapet, then sprang
boldly inside, landing on the slippery earth and sending the clods in
our faces. A second, a third, a fourth, a fifth followed. The last
two I knew clearly enough, by the flutter of their garments, were
Italians, but the first three were Germans, Swabian lanz-knechts who
would pawn their souls cheerfully for a little drink money. There
they stood, those five men of blood, each doubtless with more sins
than they had hairs. Before them, clearly in view, was the open
lattice of Dr. Luther, the sill so low as to be easily scaled by a
vigorous man; not fifteen feet away in the shadow of the wall stood
we. Adolf and Gunter had covered the gang with their arquebuses,
Amsdorf and I raised our pistols. All waited to follow my fire.
Surely if ever heaven delivered Amalek into the hands of Israel,
these five wild spirits were delivered into mine. And yet, though I
knew God and man would justify me in instant execution, I hesitated.
It was too much like slaying in cold blood. These creatures deserved
the law of the chase as little as kites or wolves, but to mow them
down before they had so much as regained their wind seemed an
unknightly thing.
Lange, the tallest, burliest, and evidently the conductor of the
gang, forgot his own prudence and swore a round oath over the
slipperiness of the ground. Then I saw him stretch out an arm.
“Here is the window,” he announced; “see, the Reverend Doctor is
still at his studies. We shall not need to awaken him.”
“No,” retorted Orosi, and I could imagine his grimace, “we are kind
physicians, the noble heretic suffers from wakefulness, we will make
him sleep, a fine draught, see!” And I caught the faint glint of a
dagger.
“Curses on us,” growled one German, “for not bringing firearms. A
shot through the window.”
“Would arouse the town, and get us torn in pieces. No, he was right.
Cold steel is the best.” (Whom “he” was, I could never discover;
possibly Forli, possibly some less ecclesiastical instigator.)
“Well, lads,” adjured Lange, softly, “swift and sure is our game. You
have the cloak to cast over his head ere he can scream, then one good
blow quells him.”
They moved together towards the window. Aiming as we were, no earthly
power seemed able to save that band the moment the finger of the
first touched the sill. But suddenly they halted, and instinctively
our levelled tubes sank. Clearly outlined in the window we saw Dr.
Luther.
For an instant I was disconcerted. We dared not fire from our present
positions lest we strike our beloved friend. I was in mortal fear
lest they spring in and stab him ere we could fly to the rescue.
I was about to drop my pistol, draw my rapier, and charge to the
attack, when Dr. Luther’s deep voice sounded out over that silent
garden. Stranger words those cutthroats never had heard, I swear.
In the candle-light we could see Dr. Luther’s face upturned, his
hands clasped and upraised.
“O God! God! God!” he spoke, and a quiver went through the murderous
five.
“He’s muttering spells,” I caught from one lanz-knecht. “He’s
devoting us all to perdition.”
“Don’t be a fool, Rudbert,” urged Lange, in a dangerously loud
whisper. “We’ll have him the easier now.”
“Wait! Bad luck to strike while a man’s praying. Wait!”
In a flash of moonlight, I could see Orosi cross himself nervously.
The whole band stirred. Had Dr. Luther’s thoughts been on anything
mundane, he would have easily discovered them gazing up at him blank
and spellbound.
“O God! God! God!” repeated Dr. Luther, still at the window, and we
all, attackers and defenders, stood silently gazing at him, as do
men in a catalepsy. Then at last his struggling emotions found their
shape. He began to pray aloud, unconscious of everything around.
“Almighty and Eternal God, how is it there is but one thing to be
seen upon earth! How the people open wide their mouths! How mean and
insignificant is their trust in God! How tender and weak the flesh,
and how mighty and active the devil, working through his apostles,
and those wise in the world! How the world draws back the hand and
snarls, as it runs the common course, the broad way down to hell!
It regards only what is pretentious, powerful, great and mighty. If
I should turn my eyes in that direction, it would be all over with
me, the clock would strike the hour, and sentence would be passed. O
God! O God! O God! Do Thou my God stand by me against all the world’s
wisdom and reason.”
“Holy Mother help us,” I heard one lanz-knecht muttering, “you have
brought us here to murder a saint. We are damned!”
“A wizard,” spoke Orosi, but I knew he had sheathed his dagger. Still
sounded the voice of Luther.
“O my God do it! Thou must do it! Yea, Thou alone must do it! Not
mine but Thine is the Cause. For my own self, I can do nothing
against these great earthly lords. Peaceful days I would have chosen,
and days afar from this sore strife. But Thine, O Lord, is this
cause: righteous it is and eternal. Stand by me, then, Thou true and
everlasting God! For in no man do I put my trust.” (By this time
the five cutthroats had slunk back to the wall, and would have gone
farther, save that they lacked strength and courage to scale it.
Luther prayed on.) “All that is of the flesh and that savors of flesh
is here of no account. God, O God, dost Thou not hear me? Art Thou
verily dead? No. Thou canst not die, Thou art only hiding Thyself.
Hast Thou chosen me for this work? I ask Thee how I may be sure of
this, if it be Thy will, for I would never have thought in all my
life of undertaking aught against such mighty lords.”
“Hence! Hence or we are damned forever!” The command came very
audibly from Hans Lange. “There is not money enough in all Germany to
make me do this devil’s work.” With one bound he cleared the wall,
and vanished.
“O you Tedesci cowards,” snarled Orosi, “scared as old women!” but
he was the second to leap. The others followed like a herd of goats.
As for ourselves, we stood transfixed. It was beyond my power to
break that spell, to nip the villains even as they were escaping
from our hands. Dr. Luther’s voice rang out again, swelling with an
indescribable emotion.
“Stand by me, O God, in the name of Thy dear Son, Jesus Christ, who
shall be my defence and strength, yea my mighty fortress, through the
might and strength of the Holy Ghost. Lord, where abidest Thou? Thou
art my God: where art Thou? Come! come! I am ready to lay down my
life patiently as a lamb. For the Cause is right and it is Thine, so
I shall never be separated from Thee. Let all be done in Thy name!
The world must leave my conscience unconstrained; and, although it
should be full of devils, and my body, Thy creation, be rent into
fragments, yet are Thy Word and Spirit good unto me. All this can
befall only the body. The soul is Thine and belongs to Thee, and
shall abide with Thee eternally. Amen. God help me. Amen.” [12]
Silence at last. Victorious in his wrestlings, comforted it seemed
in his spirit, Dr. Luther’s form vanished from the window. The alley
behind us was absolutely still. The five cutthroats had fled, routed
by a mightier power than our steel and gunpowder, nor did they ever
know how justly they had feared damnation as the price of lingering.
After a while I let Adolf search the alley. It was empty. Lange,
Orosi, and their confederates had not waited. There was nothing more
to fear that night.
I kept one of my retainers on watch in the garden until dawn, but
his presence was useless. Amsdorf and I returned to our chambers.
Dr Luther’s light was still burning, but we heard nothing from him
and did not disturb his meditations. With my mail shirt still about
me and my weapons beside me I cast myself upon a hard oaken bench
and caught a few hours sleep. In a troubled dream I thought myself a
crusader toiling over the sand deserts of Palestine, a scanty company
behind me, a clamorous host of the Infidel before. My lance was in
rest. I was riding to the charge wholly conscious that in one brief
moment of the delirium of battle my life would be snuffed out. Yet I
was glad, rapturously glad. My blood was tingling, my senses alert.
From my lance whipped the Regenstein banner. To my lips came the name
of my lady, whose gage I would bear worthily to this last battle.
“Ilsa!” I cried; “for God, the Cause, and Ilsa!”
My own voice awoke me. The sun was streaming in at the diamond-paned
windows. In the streets the noisy folk were passing. I rose and
pressed my head.
“The day!” I repeated aloud. “O holy Heaven, I thank Thee I am
permitted to live through this day.”
FOOTNOTES:
[12] The verbal accuracy of the prayer here quoted is vouched for by
first-class tradition.--EDITOR.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE WITNESS BEFORE CÆSAR
It was April 18, 1521 A.D., the day looked forward to by millions
throughout broad Germany. Would the friar, the peasant’s son, recant
before the princes, bishops, and Emperor, or would he stand fast?
Worms was divided into two hostile camps. Men almost came to blows on
the street corners. “He will retract.” “He will not.” I found even
the horseboys arguing it, when I made a chance visit to our stables.
We had not deemed it necessary to inform Dr. Luther of our
little adventure in the night time, but I communicated enough to
Deutschland, the imperial herald, so that he caused two or three
reliable men-at-arms to be stationed around the house of the Knights
to scrutinize all visitors, and I knew well enough that Emperor
Charles, little as he might love heretics, would fight against
them as became a lion and not a snake, and would visit condign
punishment on any would-be assassins. If Luther had wished any time
for deliberation it was well he spent the night at his vigils; he
had small peace all that day. His apartments literally swarmed with
well-meaning friends. Bucer had ridden over from the Ebernberg
with more letters and promises of military succour from Franz von
Sickengen. Saxon noblemen flocked to see Luther all the morning
long, greeting him with bluff heartiness and proffering much homely
cheer. “Herr Doctor,” ran their honest talk, “how are you? People
say you are going to be burned. That will never do. That would ruin
everything.” And my master, with untroubled brow and a fresh and
steady voice (as if he had had a peaceful sleep), answered them in
kind; never downcast, never boastful, but wholly cheerful, until, as
one visitor said to me when leaving, “You would think he was going
to a hair-splitting debate of harmless theologians to-day, and not
before the Estates and Emperor.” Only Amsdorf and I, who had heard
that prayer flung out into the garden, knew _whence_ came the noble
equanimity which set all the rest marvelling.
Out in the streets of the city the folk were elbowing and jostling
by thousands, and the tall houses had every window lined, man and
maid waiting, elbowing, craning to see “Him,” as he went to his great
ordeal. As for Amsdorf and myself, with a great effort we gained
Dr. Luther enough peace for us to sit down beside him, spread the
cloth, and force upon him the leg of a capon and a few tarts, that
he might not go before the Diet absolutely faint and fasting. We had
expected him to be summoned shortly after noon, but it was after four
o’clock when Ulrich von Pappenheim, hereditary marshal of the Empire,
and a file of twenty Swiss halberdiers in gorgeous scarlet surcoats,
came to escort the distinguished friar before his judges. Dr. Luther
needed no tarrying. Drawing his well-worn black habit about him,
casting upon the table the papers he had been conning, he arose to
go. I could see his lips were a little pale; possibly his steps were
short and nervous, otherwise he was perfectly natural. Amsdorf and I
each gave him a hand, and he returned the grasp warmly. We had long
since passed the time when many words were needed. The halberdiers
closed around him as if he were a prisoner. We followed at their
heels, and so out into the street.
But despite the imperial banner boldly fluttered before us by
Deutschland, despite sundry injunctions by the men-at-arms, and even
thrustings with their pike staves, so dense was the multitude that
we won a tardy progress; until at last Pappenheim, loath to keep the
Diet waiting, flung dignity to the winds, and turning us down a side
alley brought us by back ways to the privy gate in the garden wall of
the bishop’s palace, and so at last into the vast rambling structure
itself, and to the hall of audience.
Even within the palace every doorway, corridor, and overlooking
gallery was packed. Spaniards, Italians, French, Flemings, all were
there to stare at “_le grand heretique_,” as many whispered in our
hearing, though once or twice I caught a friendly word cast in some
tongue quite other than German. I saw not a few serving-men in the
livery of the Forlis, and once I believed I caught the serpent-like
eyes of Orosi peering out of a dark passageway, though of this I
could not be certain. Onward we went, until our way was blocked by
the guarded doors of the hall of the Diet; and while Pappenheim
went before to announce our coming, and we stood waiting in tense
expectancy, something occurred which heartened me at least not a
little. For, from his post as guards-captain at the entrance, came
Georg von Frundsberg, hardest-handed and most famous of the Kaiser’s
Lanzknecht generals, a man of more battles than he had surviving
hairs, and he smote his great fist on Dr. Luther’s shoulder, then
spoke with the voice of a bull.
“Little monk, little monk, now go your way, to take a stand which
neither I, nor any other commander in our sharpest battles, have
taken; yet if you be of good intent, and certain of your business, go
on in God’s name and be comforted. Never will God forsake you!”
Ere my master could answer him, Pappenheim was whispering “Enter.” We
passed inside before the Diet.
* * * * *
Begging friar and peasant’s son, no doubt, but judged by what a
court! The room used for Luther’s first hearing had proved too
small; the largest hall in the palace had been taken. Even this
was packed to the great impairment of imperial dignity. From high
windows the light of the afternoon sun was streaming in long golden
panels over an august array of ducal caps and electoral “hats of
presence.” At one end of the hall, upon a purple-covered dais, and
under a like colored canopy, sat a young man with pale and somewhat
vacant countenance, clothed all in black save for a wide collar of
white lace, while on his head perched a wide black hat. This was
Charles V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Spain and of
Naples, Archduke of Austria, Prince of the Netherlands, Dominator
of the golden Indies of the Western Seas,--the greatest monarch
since Charlemagne. At his left side, on a lower chair, was Prince
Ferdinand, his brother, destined soon to share in many of his
thrones. On his right side was a vacant seat, reserved for either one
of the Monsignori, the two Papal Legates; but they both were absent,
utterly outraged at the mere thought of seeming to parley with a
convicted heretic. To right and to left, on close-set benches, the
greater princes to the front, were the Electors, Landgrafs, and Dukes
of the Empire, by the score; and among them sprinkled the lordly
mitres of the prince-bishops whose temporal power made them mighty
potentates.
As I ran my eye over the array one and another familiar face flashed
before me: here was the handsome, sensual countenance of Albert of
Mainz, the first patron of Tetzel; here was the hard and cynical face
of his kinsman Joachim of Brandenburg, most venal and profligate
of all the Electors; and on the rear benches was many a prince
temporal or prince spiritual whom I knew wished Luther every ill.
But I saw not enemies only. From the lords of Brunswick, Pomerania,
Mecklenburg, Hesse, Lüneburg, there came friendly smiles; and on
the Electors’ bench, closest to the dais, sat the man whose rugged
bearded countenance lit up as my master entered--Frederick the Wise
of Saxony, the prince of the pure heart, who had been Luther’s best
friend, despite the fact that these days in Worms were the only times
he saw him.
Time would fail me to tell of the throng behind these princes. Counts
and Freiherrs were there, and all the deputies of the imperial
cities, all manner of captains, canons, doctors, and consequential
burghers, ambassadors of France, England, Venice, noble foreigners
and ignoble interlopers. It was hard for the Imperial ushers to keep
a decent space cleared around the very throne of majesty. Glancing
upward as I entered, I saw a lattice-work above the hall, and behind
it were moving the garments, and at times flashing the eyes of women.
Could I distinguish the face of Marianna? or the sombre robes of a
nun? Conjectures were vain at that moment. Amsdorf and I stood with
the other late comers near the doorway. The halberdiers opened their
ranks, Pappenheim went forward, and following him moved the friar of
Wittenberg--alone.
Standing on the first step of the dais, and facing the defendant,
was a man of imposing presence, clad in black, Johann von Eck,[13]
the “Official” of the Bishop of Worms and appointed as imperial
interrogator in the hearings. Hardly had the first whisper and rustle
caused by our coming passed, hardly had Luther ended his dutiful
reverence before the throne, when I saw the pale young Kaiser nod
to his spokesman. Silent enough was that hall when Eck began his
questioning. Speaking first in Latin for the learned, then in German
for the less lettered, he recapitulated what had befallen at the
former audience: how Dr. Luther had been given ample time now for a
final answer touching the charges against him. Every Christian should
give a reason for his faith, much more a learned theologian like
Luther; and now was the time for “the Herr Doctor to answer plainly
whether he stood by the contents of his books, or whether he was
ready to recant them.”
You could have heard a hair fall in that assembly when Luther began
his reply. Well though I knew him, I marvelled at his calmness.
He answered as deliberately as when he spoke to his students in
Wittenberg. His voice was clear, not shrill, and through it rang
strength and sweetness. He looked from Emperor upon princes; from
princes upon Emperor, as upon his peers, yet bravado was not in him.
Ere he had spoken three sentences I said in my heart, and hundreds
said with me, “It is well. God is with him. He will triumph.”
A second time he bowed to the Emperor, then likewise to the closely
packed Estates.
“Gracious Lord Emperor, and most serene Electors and Princes,” I give
his words as I recall them, “I crave your mercy if by my uncourtly
speech I do offend. For I am peasant-born and peasant-bred, and
untaught to stand before those whom God has set over the nations.
Nevertheless, since this is a matter of conscience, and touches even
the salvation of many souls, I will make bold to speak before you,
and I know that in your benignity you will pardon my rude tongue.”
So far the peasant’s son to the Emperor, then he fixed his eyes right
steadily on the Official.
“Worshipful Magister von Eck, you have asked me touching my books,
and now I will make answer. In my day I have written many books (with
a gesture to the volumes piled on a table below the dais), and much
do they differ in kind. For the first kind, they are books of pure
edification, nor has the bitterest foe found aught in them amiss.
How therefore dare I condemn the good words which they contain by
retracting them?”
(“A skilful retreat,” I heard a prince-bishop whisper; “he will save
a part of his writings by sacrificing the rest.”)
“Touching a second part, in them I have attacked that tyranny of
the Pope beneath which all Germany groans. And what man not blinded
by gold or the devil can deny that the whole land is most miserably
ensnared and vexed by these doctrines of the Papalists, to the
casting away of many souls. If therefore I should revoke these books,
would I not but add force to the former tyranny, yea, open not merely
the doors but the windows to destroying sin. In that case--holy God!
what a cover to wickedness would I not become! How may I recant them?”
“This sounds little like retreating,” a magnate under a ducal cap
whispered back to the bishop, but Emperor, prince, and prelate, all
kept silence while on spoke Luther.
“Finally, noble Sovereign and princes, I come to the third order of
my books. In these I have assailed divers persons who have sprung to
the defence of the Papal tyranny. Here I deny not I have perchance
shown frailty. Doubtless I have sometimes written over-harshly of
certain persons. A God I am not, but only a man, and prone to err,
through lack of charity, ill becoming the name of Christ, which I
do bear. Nevertheless I cannot retract even these books, lest in
recalling the harsh words against the Papalists I seem to soften my
attacks upon the tyranny and impiety itself, and thereby work greater
harm than that which I would fain undo.”
“He will not retract! The fiend curse him!” burst between the teeth
of the aforementioned bishop, but I could see his ducal companion
smiling broadly. The scene was desperately tense.
“Inasmuch, my Lord Emperor,” the friar’s voice still sounded, “as I
am charged with direful heresies, my books burned in many cities,
even my poor body threatened with the flames, I do remember in this
hour the word of my Master, even Christ, when the Jews haled him
before Annas, accusing him falsely of many crimes, ‘If I have spoken
evil, bear witness of the evil.’ For I am here not in my own pride,
but in the name of God and His Gospel; and I do assure your Majesty
and you noble lords that the moment I am proved to have written or
said aught against the Holy Scriptures, in that same moment I am the
first to cast my books upon the fire.”
“Blasphemer,” snarled the bishop. “Has not Rome spoken already
against him? Wherefore does he prate thus of ‘the Gospel’?”
“Because, Reverend Father,” spoke back the Duke, “a few of us sinners
are impiously preferring the Word of God to the word of Leo.”
The hall was filled with murmurs now, even from the princes’ benches.
The keepers at the door pounded for silence with their pikestaves.
Luther paused momentarily as they brought in tall red torches and set
them in the sockets around the high chamber. Presently the Emperor
nodded; and friar resumed.
“In days of old, and even in these present, it has been manifested
that the word of God would most assuredly prevail, as I am well
able to testify out of the Scripture; witness Pharaoh, the King of
Babylon, and Kings of Israel who were smitten down in the plenitude
of their power when they strove against the mandate of God. For it
is He who taketh the wise in their own craftiness and overturneth
even the mountains. Therefore it behooveth me to fear God. And this
I say, not because my admonition is needful to such noble lords, but
because the duty I owe to _my Germany_ (ah! the ring of those words!)
will not suffer me to recant. With this I do commend myself to your
Majesty and to your Lordships, humbly asking that you will not suffer
my accusers to triumph over me without fair cause. I have spoken.”
By this time I think that every man within that close-packed hall
was in one of two camps--those who believed they gazed on a fiend,
and those who believed they gazed on an angel. The black figure
on the dais stirred nervously. The Electors were leaning forward,
twisting their beards or knitting their fingers. It had grown dark
suddenly, and the torches sent an unsteady glare over us all. The
room was oppressively hot. Unpent emotions were venting themselves in
smothered oaths or praises. Was the Diet confronting Anti-Christ or a
new Apostle? Hardly a man but was ready with his certain answer, and
ready to defend it even to the shedding of blood.
Von Eck stood by the dais in silence, evidently at a loss for a
moment how to proceed. Then in a somewhat unsteady voice he directed
Dr. Luther to repeat the substance of his words in German, for the
sake of those who could not follow his Latin. This relieved the
tense situation for a little. But I could see my master’s forehead
bathed with perspiration. He stood steadfast, his voice was as calmly
strong as ever, but his face shone very wan under the hot torchlight.
Willing indeed was his spirit, but the flesh was weak. For a moment
fearing lest he was close to fainting, and himself sorely excited,
the Saxon Councillor Von Thun cast etiquette to the winds, and called
loudly across the press, “If you cannot go on, you have done enough,
Herr Doctor.”
But enough had not been done, either for foe or friend, and Luther
knew it. Completing his repetition in German, at the mandate of the
firmest will in the world his form seemed to straighten. Once more he
confronted the Official, and Von Eck, mindful of his part, returned
to the charge.
“You make many words, Herr Doctor, but your answers are not complete.
Likewise you do grievously abuse the high clemency of his Majesty and
the noble Estates in adding to your evil deeds these attacks upon the
Lord Pope and his defenders. You are here to defend your books and
teachings, not to defame others. Again in your arguments you advance
nothing new. Long debate there might be if any of your heresies were
novel, but such they are not. Long since like heresies have been
uttered by the ‘Poor Men of Lyons,’ by Wyclif of England, by John Hus
of Bohemia. Nor need I tell you that these heresies were condemned
at the great and ecumenical Council of Constance with the consent of
entire Germany. How then do you set your judgment, confessedly prone
to err, against the wisdom of that most holy Council?”
“Worshipful Magister von Eck,” retorted Luther, with the least tinge
of scorn in his voice, “I must answer you now as I have answered at
Leipzig. General Councils can err. The Council of Constance erred. My
conscience forbids me to retract.”
None who knew Luther marvelled at these words, but this clear
assertion of personal judgment over the authority of a universal
Council, a Council to which most good Catholics ascribed a power even
above a Pope’s, this, I say, set many a prince and prelate writhing
in his seat. Some even rose and cried out. There were mingled cheers
and hisses. The great prelates were gnashing with their teeth, as the
Jews over Stephen. Great beads of sweat stood on the friar’s brow,
but he held his ground, and faced unflinchingly the lowering Official
and the frowning Emperor.
“Holy God, Martin,” cried Von Eck, driven from his composure by
the calm audacity of the reply, “do you assert that Councils can
err,--can teach veritable heresy?”
“Even so,” the answer was less yielding than ever; “not once but many
times. I can prove it.”
“Prove it? Impossible!”
“In nowise. I can quote many passages of Scripture. My conscience
will not suffer me to go against them.”
Von Eck smote his hands together in rising anger.
“Martin,” he admonished, “let your conscience alone. Recant your
errors, and you will be safe and sound. Never can you prove that
Councils have erred.”
My master shook his head in silent negative. The hall, unsupportably
hot, was becoming noisy. High dignitaries were casting at Luther now
encouragements, now execrations. The Emperor stirred uneasily, as if
fain to bring the stormy audience to termination. For the last time
the Official faced his stubborn witness. His voice was sharp with
menace.
“Hearken then and make an end. His Imperial Majesty grows weary of
your stubbornness. The question set has been plain. Yes? or no? Omit
the classifications of your books, and the matter of Councils. The
Emperor demands a clear answer without horns. Will you or will you
not recant?”
Instantly the tumult was quieted. The great hall was absolutely
still. Every man looked on Luther with bated breath, while he very
deliberately squared himself before Von Eck. Then down the chamber
bore his voice, not shrill, not shouting, simply deep with the depths
of the mighty spirit within.
“Well, then, since your Serene Majesty and your Lordships ask for
a plain answer, I will give it without horns or teeth, and here it
is: Unless I am convinced by Scripture or by plain reason, seeing
that Popes and Councils have often erred and contradicted, I cannot
recant. I neither will nor can recant anything, because it is neither
safe nor right to act against one’s conscience. For my conscience is
caught in the Word of God.” Then he threw his arms wide, like some
warrior grappling the innumerable foe. “HERE I STAND. I CAN DO NO
OTHER. GOD HELP ME. AMEN!”
A great cry, hostile, friendly, broke from hundreds of throats. The
Emperor rose from his seat, and vanished by a rear entrance without
a word, while around Luther swirled a multitude that almost bore him
from his feet.
I elbowed my way to my master. Many friends were there before me,
for a score of high nobles and deputies of the towns had ringed him
around. They were pressing his hand, stamping, laughing, shouting,
even trying to kiss him. Good Elector Frederick did not tarry, but
as I passed him I heard him saying to the Duke of Pomerania, “Ah!
how well Dr. Luther spoke this day. Never now will I believe him a
heretic.”
At last the whole mass of us had my master out the door. As we
went, we saw the Italian and Spanish soldiers and prelates crowding
around, moving their dark lips, flashing malignity from their eyes,
and crying in their own tongues, “To the fire! To the fire! Burn
the heretic!” But the German nobles closed about him as a guard of
honor, and their swords flashed out and tossed wildly in the darkened
streets. Just as we reached the portal, and the cold air smote
us, Luther threw his hands high above his head, as would a ritter
returning victorious from the lists.
“I am through!” he cried, with feverish laughter, “I am through! _I
am through!_”
So back to the house of the Knights of St. John. Outside in the
streets we heard a true whirlwind raging; a concourse of all the wild
spirits in Worms was loose, drinking deep, shouting loud, clashing
its swords and bawling its “_vivats!_” for the peasant’s son who had
made even Emperor and Electors hear the cry of the Fatherland against
the tyrant of Italy. At our quarters there were other tokens of the
general favor, heartening messages from princes, city deputies, and
even high ecclesiastics, and Duke Erik of Brunswick sent Luther a
true German present, a mighty can of Einbecker beer from his own
table. Spalatin, Elector Frederick’s confessor, was there, with
cheering words from his sovereign, and a host of humbler friends who
had not been able to enter the hall, but who now caught as it were
for the hem of their leader’s garment.
Dr. Luther cast himself upon the bench and sat for long in silence.
He was terribly pale. His forehead was bathed with sweat. At times
he would tremble all over. But his eyes shone with a light almost
supernatural. He was very happy.
* * * * *
Years have passed over me since that afternoon in Worms. What I
thought then, is my thought even to this day,--that since the hour
when Jesus Christ cried, “It is finished,” on the Cross, and by His
sacrifice redeemed this world, mankind have seen few or no hours
greater, more potent for the far hereafter, than that scene in the
hall before princes and Emperor.
_He_ had done it. He, the peasant’s son, the begging friar. Against
him had been Roman Law and Canon Law, the authority of Councils, the
mandate of Popes, the tradition of the Church, the frowns of prince
prelates and Kaiser, the manifest warnings of a fiery death. He had
carried to the ordeal only the good wishes of those who trusted him,
and his own clear conscience. He had braved everything, Church, and
State, and physical terrors, and threatenings of hell. Where others,
the wisest and noblest, would have recanted, he had refused. Where
the bravest might have quailed, he had stood steadfast. He had been
true to himself, despite the scorn and thunder and fury of nigh all
the great ones of the world.
And I think it of little account whether in days to come men shall
say Martin Luther did well or ill in his exact doctrines, of “Grace,”
or “Faith,” or “Redemption.” Doctrines change, the shifting prism
of truth can find new colors, but the right of a man to stand
before his God and to avow, “This I hold to be Truth, for with the
powers Thou hast given, I see it so,” such a right, I say, is what
Luther defended at Worms. And till mornings and evenings cease, and
summer be confounded with winter, shall the fruits of this victory
abide; priest, and dogma, and human tradition and human law shall
no more stand betwixt the vision of Truth and him who shall seek it
reverently.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] He was no connection of the Eck who had confronted Luther at
Leipzig.
CHAPTER XXX
THE HAND OF FORLI
It is told in the Gospels how Our Lord and His disciples ascended
upon the Mount of Transfiguration, where were scenes passing the
imaginings of man, even the apparition of Moses and Elias out of
Paradise. Then after the cloud, the divine voice and the glory, they
must needs go down from the mountain, and lo! the world was not
changed, men were still eating, sorrowing, blundering as of old, and
the father of the demoniac boy was waiting to tell of his miserable
burden. So in small measure it was even with us after that afternoon
in Worms. The next morning we looked forth, expecting, as it were,
to behold a new heaven and a new earth, but half to our astonishment
we were in the former bustling, tale-mongering, intriguing city,
the Spanish courtiers were idling near the palace gate, the Swiss
halberdmen were over their beer in the taverns even as before. We
were in the same imperfect world as ever, and if the vision of glory
did not vanish from memory, surely the brightness of its reality was
a little tarnished.
I awoke late, and rubbed an aching head. I could at least comfort
myself that I was not paying the price of a carouse. Amsdorf was
silent and moody when we breakfasted, Andrea, who served us, was
heavy-eyed; even Dr. Luther (who joined us when we were nearly
finished) had little to say, although he professed to have slept
tolerably. Our remarks were very commonplace. Later in the morning
I wrote a long letter to my deputy at the Regenstein, touching the
new road I was causing to be built around my snug dominions, and
idled away an hour with an armorer who tried to sell me a new fowling
cross-bow. Even the report that there was another meeting of the
Diet called for that same day to deliberate on Dr. Luther’s answer
did not rouse my interest. My master had spoken his word, and I knew
that he had enshrined himself forever in the hearts of Germany. What
the Diet, dominated by a half-Flemish, half-Spanish Emperor, and a
great coterie of horrified prince-bishops might resolve, did not for
the moment greatly matter. If it voted Luther a heretic, the German
nation would thunder back the answer. As I sat toying with the new
cross-bow, I caught myself levelling it nonchalantly at imaginary
Spanish pikemen, who were striving to storm Wittenberg, and my mind
revelled in vast imaginary slaughter.
But about noon I had a visitor who shook me quickly enough out of
my lethargy,--Moritz von Blankenburg. The sight of that honest,
heavy-handed, hard-working young nobleman was ever welcome to me, let
alone his kinship to my Lady Ilsa. He had been one of the spectators
in the great hall of audience, had seen me in Luther’s company,
and had found our lodgings without trouble. Our first words were
naturally full of enthusiasm over the words and deeds of my master.
“Ah! Walter,” spoke he, while his hand closed over mine, “the black
crows shall not have Germany in their talons again till every graf
and ritter in the North Country is in a bloody grave. I know my
people. We do not have the million words and gestures of those apes
of the South, but our arms are strong; I know all I say. I am going
back to Blankenburg to make ready my lands and castle for the war. In
a month it will be on us.”
But by this time my belligerent day-dreams had been chased away, and
I shook my head.
“Nobly said, Moritz, and nobly done too if needs be. But it will not
come to that, God willing. We must bethink us; you, I, every friend
of Dr. Luther, for a way to save him, yet keep the peace. The Cause
must prevail, and shall, against all fiends, but not by culverins and
poleaxes save as last resort. Give us a little respite, a few months
even, and all will be well.”
Von Blankenburg laughed derisively. “You have not been to the Diet
this morning. The Emperor has caused a solemn statement to be read
setting forth that he and his Imperial ancestors have been loyal sons
of the Church and foes of heresy, that Luther has been clearly proved
obstinate in his errors and worthy of all punishment as a ‘true
and evident heretic,’ and the Estates are admonished to give their
judgment as to how to deal with him. The Papal Legates are beside
themselves with glee, the prince-bishops are snarling for blood like
jackals. Elector Frederick and the other friends of the friar sit
moody and without a word. Are we then to say ‘peace, peace,’ while
Luther is banned and burned?”
I checked his vehemence with a restraining hand. “You ask a very
witless question, Moritz. But hear my answer. That Luther should
be banned at the behest of the Emperor and bishops astonishes me
not at all, but burning is a different matter. He will in any case
be suffered to return to Wittenberg, unless Charles violate the
safe-conduct and enkindle the fury of Germany. And once out of Worms,
few will make haste to burn him. Do you know what will happen?”
“What?”
“I have been watching the foreign clouds, and hearing all the rumors.
Francis of France is about to seize our fine Kaiser by the throat.
There is a great war impending. One month, two, three, four, how many
I know not, but it will not be for very long. Once set the armies of
His Imperial Majesty and of the Most Christian King to marching, and
it will be a long day before the Emperor has much time or hankering
to embroil himself with his German subjects whose spears and taxes
will be very useful. If now Dr. Luther might be hidden away, might
vanish like a bird, captured not by his foes, but by his friends, and
remain hidden and safe for a little season, all will be well. Germany
will find herself. The Cause will be too firmly rooted to be shaken,
though all the winds of hell blow against it. When peace with France
comes, Pope and Emperor will find the task too great for them.”
Moritz stroked his blond mustache reflectively. “I would be glad to
see Luther in such an owl’s nest. There is one place possible, if the
Saxon court will suffer it;--the Wartburg.”
“The great castle of Thuringia? Nothing safer. But who is its
governor?”
“My own uncle, Von Steinitz; transferred from Wittenberg. Have you
not heard it?”
“Better friend to Luther does not breathe. What if the thing could be
managed! But, praise heaven, we have a respite, and my wits are too
dull to-day to outwit a sheep, much less the Monsignori. Let us talk
of other things.”
Then I asked him about his journey to Worms, and the welfare of his
aunt and sister, whereat his brow clouded, but he told me readily.
The abbess had need to visit Worms on the business of her order,
some appeal to the Pope’s Legates as to a new “tenth” laid by the
Vatican upon the Abbey lands. She had, he thought, taken Ilsa with
her as travelling companion more because she distrusted leaving
the young nun alone at Quedlinburg, than because she found her
company congenial. She could not well refuse Moritz’s proffered
escort, because it was notorious that the roads were infested by
“free ritters,” to whom an abbess was no more sacred than a fat
burgomaster; but all the way she had taken pains that Moritz and Ilsa
should speak together as little as possible.
As for the abbess’s opinion of Luther, it had been one of
uncompromising hostility. On the afternoon of the great ordeal she,
with Ilsa and many other ladies, had listened to the great heretic
through a grille above the hall. She had professed loud expectations
that at the last “his father the devil” would forsake the friar,
and leave him recanting and confounded. After the audience Moritz
had seen his aunt and sister, and in the enthusiasm of the moment
had heaped all manner of praise on Luther. His words had been flint
against the abbess’s steel. A bitter dialogue had followed. Ilsa
had taken sides warmly with her brother and incidentally with the
heretic. Her aunt had turned on her in fury, had charged her with
violating her sacred vows, “in hope, and thought, and everything but
deed,” and finally had forbidden her “on her obedience as a nun,” to
speak again to her “blasphemous and heretical brother.” The scene
had ended with the abbess suddenly quitting the inn where the party
had lodged, and seeking apartments at the castle. And as for Moritz,
he, poor fellow, could only “bite his thumbs and look sour while his
sister was led away.” The abbess, he hoped, would presently relent,
“but sometimes he thought it more profitable to beseech a stone
horse-post than his holy Aunt Theckla.”
“Moritz,” said I, directly, “is your sister Ilsa happy?”
“Happy?” he reëchoed, “I think she is one of the most miserable
creatures in all the world.”
“Moritz,” I continued, “you believe in God. You believe that He is
kindly, compassionate, forgiving; that if He is merciful to our sins,
He is still more merciful to our blunders. Do you think it for His
honor and glory, and do you think He is well pleased that when one
of His children has taken upon herself vows for a life for which she
is all unfitted, a life which makes herself and one she truly loves
miserable beyond words, that those vows should be kept forever?”
He looked at me distractedly an instant, then his eyes opened in a
mingled wonder and dread. “Holy Christ!” he swore, “you do not mean--”
With him I knew there was no way better than perfect frankness. “I
mean full soon to ride into the Regenstein with your sister my true
and honored wife.”
He was somewhat slow of thought; at last he spoke, though all over he
was a-tremble.
“Yesterday at this hour I would have vowed ‘impossible.’ To-day,
after hearing Dr. Luther’s great words, after feeling that the
old priests’ faith was dying, that the better men’s faith was at
hand--what shall I say? She is my sister. Who shall guard her honor
save I?--” A long pause, and then, “You shall have her, Walter, if
but Dr. Luther bless your wedding; and then God keep and bless us
all!”
We pressed hands silently. A little later Andrea came to say that a
strange man in burgher’s dress demanded to see me, and I went to the
outer chamber.
* * * * *
It all befell very simply. I had gone to my fate as blindly as an ox
to the slaughter. A decently dressed fellow of few words had asked me
to visit a certain obscure inn situate near the Rhine gate, “Where he
believed he could reveal to me a conspiracy against Dr. Luther.” I
had followed him unhesitatingly, without even a word of explanation
to Moritz. My informant declared I must come alone, or the plotters
would grow suspicious. Possessed by the single thought that my
master might be in some new danger, I had gone out into the street
with barely the word to Andrea “To watch Dr. Luther like gold till I
returned.” As for myself, I had not the least anxiety in the world.
Was I not surely as safe as the hundred other German nobles attending
the Diet? I had followed my conductor through circuitous and noisome
alleys, until we passed into a narrow court before a tall, but very
decrepit ancient mansion. Throwing open the narrow battered door the
fellow motioned me to enter.
“This is a strange place to bring me,” I remarked with a shrug, for
the first time debating the good faith of his errand.
“Your Lordship will discover in a moment the object of bringing you
hither,” came the complacent answer. “You will have opportunity to
hear the converse of some of Luther’s most malignant enemies.”
“After all,” I reflected, “conspirators must choose uncanny holes!”
And so I stepped inside. The instant I had done so, however, I turned
on my conductor sharply. “Fellow, you declared you would bring me to
an inn. This silent house is no more an inn than it is a cathedral.”
Before I could receive his answer, I was startled by the rush of
feet down the dark passage. At least four men were on me, and the
door was instantly closed behind, cutting off nearly all the light.
I struggled desperately to draw my walking rapier, but the odds were
too great. In a moment I was on my back, with some sort of a shawl
closely pressed over my head, stifling my outcries.
“Lie quiet, Excellency,” spoke a guttural voice which I recognized as
possibly Hans Lange’s, “we are rough valets, but your life is in no
danger if you but submit quietly.”
Having exerted myself to the very limit of my powers, I was fain
to yield, being in fact too bruised and out-of-breath to think
connectedly, and presently I was rudely hoisted to my feet with a
muffler tied across my mouth, a dark handkerchief across my eyes, and
my arms pinioned together not very gently. In this condition I was
perforce led some distance through what I conceived to be, by the
smell, musty apartments, and then again out into the open air; next
I was thrust, or rather cast, upon the straw of what seemed a wagon.
My captors beyond a doubt had been entirely prepared to deal with me,
for the instant I was in the vehicle I felt them all clambering in
beside me, and the former speaker ordered huskily “To close the wagon
cover, and drive away.”
I heard the cracking of a whip, and in a moment we were off, bumping
and rattling over the merciless cobbles of the city streets until
every bone of my body, already sorely bruised, ached as if on the
rack. Speech was forbidden to me, and my custodians said little,
save that one cursed at times “that I had nigh bitten off his ear
whilst we struggled on the floor.” Presently we were beyond the
paved streets, and to my great relief upon some kind of a more level
earthern road. Forcing myself to collect my wandering wits I tried to
note the turns the wagon might take, and to compute the lapse of time
consumed in the driving; but any guesses were obviously futile. I
could only imagine I was being conveyed to some prison at a distance
from the city walls. I was too conscious of much physical pain to
reason connectedly; I could only console myself that at least my
kidnappers were not assassins, until a “_Jesu-Maria!_” from one of
the men about me taught half the story instantly.
“Ah! Eminenza di Forli,” spoke I in my heart, “it is to you that
I owe this fair hospitality: you are about to repeat with greater
address those worthy deeds you attempted at Palaestro! But we shall
discover.”
In fact, my spirits rose a little. After all, in dealing with Forli I
was dealing with a man whose means and mental processes I thoroughly
understood, and was not that half the battle?
Presently the wagon rattled over a drawbridge, and halted for a
murmured conversation, possibly with a sentinel on duty; we soon
drove on, up a considerable incline, as if into a castle courtyard,
and the hoofs clicked on more cobbles; next I was seized like a log,
stood on my feet, and hurried down a flagged passage and up two
long stairways. I heard a rattling of bolts; a door creaked open;
I was thrust inside. Then the mufflers were withdrawn from my eyes
and mouth; the pinions from my arms. Before me stood two low-browed
loutish men with great rings of keys at their waists, evidently
regular jailors, and by no means my late captors and companions. I
eyed them severely.
“Well, my merry masters,” said I, glad to find my tongue, “will you
deign to inform me why I am so suddenly summoned to partake of your
kind hospitality?”
“Your worship will know presently,” remarked one, with a very sullen
reverence.
“I am glad to see that you have the grace to bow to your betters. You
would do still more wisely to consider whether it is safe for you
to hold a free Count of the Empire in this most unlawful custody.
Because I do not rave and curse do not think I am insensible to my
treatment.”
“We have high warrant. Your worship will be told presently,” was all
I could get out of him, and then perhaps fearing to have me question
further, they turned suddenly and quitted the cell, leaving me to my
thoughts and to cultivate the captive’s slow virtue of patience.
A cell the place surely was, although not quite a dungeon. I had soon
paced off its nine feet by eight. The walls were roughly smoothed
limestone. A single small and heavily barred window close to the
ceiling showed nothing but a blank bare wall of masonry. There was a
hard pallet with a rough blanket, a hay-stuffed sack for a pillow,
a three-legged stool, an earthern cruse of water. On the walls were
scribblings and rude pictures, the handiwork of former prisoners,
but I could not interpret them then. That was all. My explorations
were soon finished. Seating myself on the edge of the pallet I began
to take account of my own physical state. Fortunately I was really
none the worse save for a few scratches and bruises, although my
arms were very sore where the cords had chafed. My clothing had been
rent to shreds in the struggle. The kidnappers had appropriated my
purse and gold chain, and of course my sword. I washed myself with
the water in the cruse, drank a little, and felt somewhat refreshed,
but my mental condition was none the happiest. This was a far more
serious bondage than that from which Andrea had nimbly extricated
me at Palaestro. In addition to wrath at the actual outrage came
wrath at my own simplicity. How utterly I had played the fool! Had
asked almost no questions, had taken no precautions, had informed no
friends. Bewitched by the magic words “A plot against Luther,” I had
walked into a trap a simpleton would have scorned. Verily I deserved
every misery that might be awaiting!
Thus raced my first thoughts, but after these came others more
bitter. Why had I been singled out for this treatment, even by an
unmoral being like Forli? The answer came quickly enough; because
in removing me, there was removed one of the chiefest guardians of
Luther. My kidnapping was the prelude to a fouler plot to break the
safe-conduct and to work some mortal harm upon the great foe of the
Vatican. So after the moments of wrath came the moments of rage,
when with none to witness me I cursed, swore oaths fit, I fear, for
a lanz-knecht, bade God smite me dead, mew me up in prison forever,
tear me limb from limb on the rack, if only my master might be saved,
and the Cause move on to its eternal triumph.
At length the passion died. Heavy-hearted, weary in mind and body,
sorely perplexed, I sat down again on the bed. I realized now that I
was hungry, nor was I sorry when one of the scurvy jailors opened
to pass me in a small loaf and a wooden platter of ill-cooked peas
and lentils. I ate them greedily, and was again sitting idly, musing
on the sore perplexity my disappearance would cause to Dr. Luther,
when again the bolts rattled. I saw the jailors scraping in abject
servility before a personage in a bright red cloak. It was the
Cardinale di Forli.... His smile was as gracious as of old, when we
met casually on the Corso. His features had possibly coarsened a
trifle in the past few years, and he had grown more portly, otherwise
I could not detect the slightest change. There was a tinge of
delicate perfume about him. His rings and the linen at his neck and
wrists were exquisite. I rose and bowed with some stiffness, both
mental and physical. At sight of my tattered clothes he raised his
hands deprecatingly.
“Alas! my poor Gualtiero. What disarray you have caused yourself by
your ill-timed resistance. I charged my worthy servitors to conduct
you here as gently as possible.”
“Then I owe to you, Eminenza, the vast courtesy of this encounter,
this ride and these present hardly sumptuous quarters.”
“It will be your own fault, my dear fellow,” he rejoined “if you do
not speedily exchange them for better. As for your clothes, that
matter shall be remedied immediately.”
“I have more serious affairs upon my mind than the state of my
doublet,” I returned coldly.
“I am delighted,” he observed, ignoring my remark, “that you retain
your use of the Italian tongue so perfectly. I feared your accent
had been ruined by these years of hearing only barbarous German
gutturals.”
“Why your particular satisfaction, Eminenza?”
“Because you are so shortly to return to Italy as a country of
permanent sojourn; in short, to resume your rightful estate,
character, and life as the Conte di Palaestro.”
“Whether Palaestro or Regenstein is to be my name,” I cast back,
paling possibly at the implied threat, “I trust Monsignore il
Cardinale will be gracious enough to let me choose for myself.”
He moved his fat hands deprecatingly, and fingered the rare cameo
dangling at his neck.
“You drive me to very blunt speech, Gualtiero; but allow me to state
our intentions as delicately as possible. You will doubtless recall
the advice of the famous physicians of antiquity--simply to name
Hippocrates and Galen,--who urge the wise professor of the art of
Æsculapius not to refrain from some necessary surgery or caustic,
however sharp, notwithstanding that the sick man cries out vehemently
against the inevitable pain. So we, physicians for your highest weal
and happiness, cannot be deterred from our wholesome ministrations by
any forms of protest, which you, _carissimo_, may feel in duty bound
to utter.”
“I correctly apprehend your meaning,” I returned, “yet you will
pardon my impoliteness if I fail to display true gratitude. However,
you will suffer me to observe that this is Germany, not Italy,
this is Worms, not Rome. It may prove an awkward, nay an highly
embarrassing thing for even the Cardinal Legate of the Pope to have
been the promoter of the lawless kidnapping of a free Count of the
Empire. You fail in your customary shrewdness if you imagine such a
proceeding will advance the prestige and favor of His Holiness in
Germany. If I live, I will seek ample redress for your deeds this
day. If you murder me, I can at least promise sufficient vengeance.”
“You speak as lustily as a Neapolitan bravo, my dear fellow,” spoke
Forli, showing his teeth most unpleasantly. “I assure you your
firm front, in what is confessedly a painful predicament, does you
infinite credit. I will not fail to repeat it all to the admiration
of Marianna. However, to return to the present discussion; you will
perhaps modify your judgment of me when I show you this.”
He drew from his sleeve a small paper. As he unrolled it, my eyes
caught the red seal with the Hapsburg double eagle. He passed it to
me, and I read in French.
“For high reasons of Church and State, his Eminence, the
Cardinale di Forli, is permitted to seize the person of Walter,
Graf von Regenstein, otherwise called the Conte di Palaestro, and
to keep the said Walter in such custody as he may see fit.
“Such is our Imperial pleasure.
“_Carolus Imperator._”
There seemed nothing to say. I simply bowed and returned the writing
to Forli, who waited considerately for the first shock of my
discomfiture to pass.
“You see we were driven to these measures, Gualtiero,” he said
at length, replacing the paper. “Your attitude towards Marianna
was so absolutely unconciliatory. Santo Spirito! The poor girl
was completely prostrated when I found her soon after you left
her. Fortunately His Majesty was moved to do me a service, but
out of consideration to yourself, no less than with a view to the
disturbance your public arrest might create, I caused you to be taken
most privately. Marianna has begged that you be humiliated as little
as possible.”
“Cardinale di Forli,” I broke in, “grant me no favors, save as you
would grant them to your mortal enemy. I will not waste tongue and
breath on oaths, swearing that I will neither go to Italy nor stay
in Italy save as a close prisoner. You think you know me, and of a
surety I know you. Therefore our relations are simpler. Yet answer
if you will one thing--am I here because Marianna will not see me
escape her meshes, or because I have befriended Luther? Why should
the Emperor order my arrest, even at the bidding of a Papal Legate?”
I could see Forli was not glad to have me press the question. His
eyes moved shiftily.
“I cannot answer you now, Gualtiero. Perhaps there was a mixture of
motive. You shall see what you shall see.”
“I thank you, Eminenza,” said I, with a sarcastic shrug, “for your
enlightening answer.”
Evidently he saw our conversation was leading nowhere, and he moved
backward to the door, nor did I make effort to detain him.
“Addio,” spoke he, going out, “till to-morrow. I will report your
gracious speeches to Marianna.”
The waiting jailor flung open for him, the door closed behind him,
and the bolts rattled back. The room was already darkening with the
advancing twilight. I was alone with the four gray walls and my hard
pallet. Long, long I sat with my head on my hands, trying to solve
the riddle of Forli’s schemes and of my own fate. That the Cardinal
and Marianna should seek my mischief was likely enough; but why the
Emperor, who might strike more open blows, should condescend to this
dagger-thrust, was beyond my guessing. Surely, Charles had hitherto
seemed an honorable foe,--a lion, not a jackal.
I was weary in mind and body. My brain refused to work clearly. The
prison around me was still,--terribly still. My absolute loneliness
added to the fearfulness of my predicament. I would have been glad of
some veritable idiot with whom I might go through the form of taking
counsel. The black wall before me was not more unscrutable than my
future. Only two things could I forsee clearly. Luther was about to
confront some terrible and unexpected danger, and I was removed,
partly lest I prevent that danger. Again, the Cause was like to
perish, and with the Cause went every hope I had so loftily vaunted
to Moritz touching Ilsa. She would die a Quedlinburg nun! And I--was
I to be held in Italy like a dumb sheep, till I consented again
to lead the old heathen life as the lover of Marianna? But here my
manhood uprose in hot revolt. I was in prison, but I had still hands,
heart, head, and wits. Luther was in danger, but he was not yet dead.
The Cause in peril, but not yet ruined. Wherefore had men praised my
learning, physical address, prudence, and worldly wisdom if I could
not use them for mighty ends? The crisis was on me. By some power I
knew not, and by some voice I heard not, it was borne home to me that
in the next few days would come the test of my entire life; that I
was to be put in heaven’s crucible and tried, to see how much was
dross, how much was gold; that I must calm myself; must speak no word
lightly; do no deed rashly; and be ready for whatsoever sacrifice
high Duty might demand. Then, and then only, come what might, I would
redeem my soul. And whether after that I lived or died would matter
very little.
Remembering the example both of my master in Worms and my other
Master in heaven, I cast myself beside the bed and prayed earnestly
and long.
“Lord,” I concluded, “human help is failing me. Human philosophies
and wisdom profit me nothing. Send down from Heaven Thy strength that
I may save Dr. Luther and the Cause. May I be true to myself, and to
the trust which Ilsa has set in me. Grant only that--then do with me
as Thou wilt.”
When I rose to my knees a panel of moonlight from the tiny window
threw itself across the flagged floor of the cell.
“A fair omen!” I thought. Nor was I troubled because the conceit
seemed pagan.
CHAPTER XXXI
THE OFFER OF CÆSAR
I slept with tolerable soundness, but awoke with a start very early,
just when a bar of gray light was thrusting in at my little window
and making the blackness of the cell barely visible. Outside my door
some turnkey went past with his heavy keys jangling. The events of
the past day and my present helpless predicament all surged back to
me in a flash. The pallet had been very hard. My ribs ached, and I
felt little refreshed by my slumber. Nevertheless, in the darkness I
was fain to lie meditating on all things unpleasant until the gloom
had changed to twilight, the twilight to clear daylight. Then I
perceived that while I slept my tattered doublet and cloak had been
removed, and replaced by others of elegant material and tailoring,
suitable for the walking dress of a nobleman; and there was even a
sword laid upon them, although it was a poor mean thing for a weapon,
with a rare chased hilt, but a blade not fit to slay a toad. In
short, I was led to augur that the present phase of my captivity was
not likely to continue very long.
This impression was heightened by the demeanor of the jailor, who
soon entered with my breakfast. He was brusque enough, answering my
questions with nods and monosyllables; but the food he brought was
far superior to the prison fare of the past day, and I was glad to
eat heartily. On putting on my new clothes, I observed that their
whole cut and fashion was Italian, and that everything about my
apparel suggestive of Germany had been carefully removed from the
cell. My curiosity was thus distinctly heightened, but I was fain to
nurse it in solitary patience through a good interval of the morning,
till at last I heard a distinct trumpeting, as if without the
fortress, and a clangor of arms, and shouting of officers “to turn
out their men.” This was followed by a thundering salute from several
culverins, and more confused shouting. It required little discernment
on my part to conclude that a princely personage had been entering
the castle, and I conjectured (it soon appeared rightly) that I was
confined in one of the half fortresses, half summer-houses on the
Rhine, possessed by the Bishop of Worms and now at the temporary
disposal of the Emperor. The tumult and uproar died presently, and
I was becoming sufficiently impatient and moody, when the cell was
again opened, and my jailor beckoned me forth with more civility than
on former visits.
“Will my gracious Lord follow me?” and I was fain to trudge at his
heels down a number of bat-dark corridors and vaulted passages, until
at last we passed a doorway guarded by a mustachioed Spanish pikeman,
when presto! I was in another world! Rich carpets were under our
feet. The walls were hung with intricate tapestries; I caught the
sniff of spring flowers from some garden. Wide windows, flung clear
open, let in the ample April sunlight and the balmy breeze that blew
across the Rhine. The turnkey led me up to a smooth-faced valet in
brown livery, saluted, turned on his heel, and was gone to his own
part of the castle, leaving me to follow my new guide, who with a bow
and flourish worthy of a Parisian led me through several chambers,
only to halt finally at another door and announce in sonorous
Italian, “His Excellency the Conte di Palaestro.”
“Let him enter,” returned a voice which I at once recognized as
Forli’s, and I was instantly in the presence of the Cardinal.
The prelate rose with his most condescending smile to greet me, would
not let me kiss his hand, and insisted that I sit beside him upon the
broad couch by the windows. Below us in admirable vista spread the
muddy Rhine and the green Palatinate country to eastward. The manner
of Forli was more than bland. A stranger would have believed this
the meeting of an affectionate uncle and a highly dutiful nephew, a
picture truly edifying and touching.
Forli surveyed me carefully, noting with approval the fit of my
clothes and my general carriage.
“Admirably done. This Tuscan broadcloth makes another man of you.
Marianna was very sure the dark blue would become you rarely, and she
was right. What taste the girl has! She could qualify as a feminine
Petronius, the Arbiter Elegantiae of the court of Nero. You recall
the allusion, of course?”
“Most decidedly. You are extremely apt. Marianna is all you say,” I
rejoined in a tone that might have carried a trifle of sarcasm.
“I knew you would applaud her choice. Poor maid, she has found your
attitude so unflinching! but after all I said to her, ‘Remember
Gualtiero is half a German, and the evil blood is bound to show
itself at times; besides the poor fellow is bewitched. We will
dispose of the wizard, and remove his victim to Italy. Then your
heart will very promptly be mended.’”
I felt the muscles of my forehead begin to twitch, but I am sure
Forli saw nothing.
“Well, Eminenza,” spoke I, “I am too long honored by your close
acquaintance not to feel myself a lamb before a leopard in dealing
with your high decisions concerning me; yet even apart from the
wisdom of your course, even apart from the question whether Luther
be wizard or apostle, you must at least remember I call myself a
cavaliere, a man of honor; and my honor is sorely touched by having
been thus seized for bearing like a caged starling from Worms to
Rome. I do your Eminence only justice when I say that either I must
be fairly convinced my return to Italy is not against my honor,
or I will make every effort to escape from your custody, however
honorable.”
Forli eyed me very shrewdly; his smile was benignant, but altogether
inscrutable.
“To Italy you shall go, Gualtiero,” said he, at length, “will-you,
nill-you; but I think you will not find it contrary to your honor.”
“Your Eminence may well summon up all your justly famous eloquence to
convince me; all your orators’ precepts from Quintilian and Tacitus.
I have been with Martin Luther now these two and more years. I have
heard all the arguments which Rome can bring against him. I have
weighed carefully the possible cost of supporting his cause. I will
not anger your Eminence by words in his behalf which you will call
weak sentiment and bathos; but far as the eastern and western seas
our minds now stand asunder. You will never win me.”
“I shall not try,” and still he smiled on.
“I fear I divine your meaning,” I rejoined; “you believe Madonna
Marianna will prove the more eloquent orator. Great are her gifts;
but they are not for me. Spare us both another painful scene. She
likewise will prove powerless.”
“Our advocate will not be Marianna,” said Forli, with that smile
which only deepened.
“Who, then, Eminenza?”
“Charles the Fifth--Holy Roman Emperor.”
And then I was shaken for a truth, and the cardinal grinned amiably
at my surprise. “_Per deos immortales_, Gualtiero, you need not be
amazed! You have really become quite a man in the world. At every
court men are guessing at your motives. At Rome they say it is
because you did not get the red hat. Let that pass. Certain it is,
all our Vatican party are saying ‘it is your Palaestro who has swept
the Elector of Saxony and so many North German princes and Free
Cities into the Lutheran net. _He_ it is who has made it so difficult
to burn _il heretico_ without convulsing all Germany.’ It was partly
on your account I quitted Paris so suddenly and came to Worms. Do not
then wonder that His Majesty knows all about you, and sends for you.”
“But by every power, Eminenza,” cried I, aroused, indeed, “for what
purpose does the Emperor send for me, unless indeed I be such a
dangerous public firebrand I must be forever smothered in a dungeon.”
“Hardly that; you shall discover directly. You are to have immediate
audience.”
“With the Emperor?”
“Even so. Doubtless you heard the cannon booming when he came out
from Worms.”
He paused to help himself to some strong waters from a silver
decanter. I was glad of the respite. More clearly than ever I knew I
was facing some mortal crisis. I bowed my head as if resting, but it
was to seek also a strength beyond strength of man. Hardly had Forli
refreshed himself when a Spanish gentleman, immaculately clad from
cap to heels in gray, bowed himself into the room.
“I have the honor to transmit the Emperor’s commands,” spoke he in
French, but accompanying with a profound Castilian reverence, “that
the Conte di Palaestro wait on him immediately.”
Forli rose, waving me a kind of god-speed with his hand.
“Be sensible, Gualtiero,” he enjoined; “do not be swayed by silly
sentiment. I will have Marianna meet you when you quit His Majesty.”
* * * * *
I was in the presence of the man who had it in his certain power to
order my execution, to fling me into unending prison, to consign me
to exile: Charles of Hapsburg. I had seen him at the Diet, but only
from a distance, and my thoughts had all been for Luther. Now we were
face to face.
He was seated at a low desk covered with papers, in a small room
conspicuous by its plainness. A gorgeously dressed courtier kept
the door; a sprucely dressed secretary stood at his elbow to supply
any documents needed out of several capacious leathern portfolios,
but the Emperor was dressed in dead black, with almost monkish
simplicity. From the heavy golden chain at his neck, as sole ornament
dangled a copper medal of some patron saint. When I was announced, he
glanced up, nodded a very brief recognition, then went on writing. I
was able to survey his person at leisure. Here was a young man just
of age, of middle stature, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, with a
high, intellectual forehead. His nose was decidedly aquiline. The
whole aspect of his countenance was pale, grave, melancholy, yet
withal commanding. The eyes were blue and keen, the hair blond,
almost reddish. I instantly recognized the projecting lower jaw, with
its thick heavy lip, the true family mark of the princely Hapsburgs.
The lower part of his face was veiled by a very thin beard. Barring
the light hair there was nothing German about him. “A Spaniard at his
heart,” thought I, and I believe history will testify I was right.
He continued writing until I had become tense and uneasy with the
waiting; then I saw him fold the paper with his own hands and give
it to the waiting secretary. Very deliberately then he pushed back
his leaden inkstand and fastened his eyes on me. His gaze was deep,
inscrutable; it was impossible to call it either hostile or friendly.
“The Conte di Palaestro?” asked he in Italian. I bowed. “Do you
speak French?” he continued in that tongue. “I prefer it.”
“I am fortunate, your Majesty, in having passing command of the
language.”
“Good, then. We may converse.”
“I attend the Emperor’s pleasure.”
He did not reply immediately, but continued his cold, passionless
scrutiny. The interval was not agreeable, but I strove to endure with
composure. At last he spoke again in a slow, monotonous tone; all
intellect, but no fire.
“You have made no small name for yourself, Conte di Palaestro, or
Graf von Regenstein--whichever title you prefer. It is thanks partly
to you that so many princes refuse to set their names to a decree of
the Diet condemning Luther. It was a heavy thing for a nobleman of
your youth, and of an honorable yet hardly princely rank, to attempt
what you have done. This Luther is causing me and my councillors many
anxious hours.”
“Your Majesty overpraises my influence,” I replied, “the princes of
Germany are their own masters. In arguing the cause of Luther I have
but argued as one of your loyal subjects. The arousing wrath of your
people of every sort and condition against the evil deeds of the
Papalists has done the rest.”
“I have not summoned you to hear one more defence of Luther.”
“I am most humbly waiting your gracious pleasure, Sire,” spoke I, at
once anxious and curious.
He beckoned to the secretary, and whispered a request. Forth from
one of the portfolios came a document covered with writing. Charles
spread it on the desk.
“Here, Conte di Palaestro, is all I can learn about you. My agents at
the different princely courts of Germany and Italy have compiled it.
Your ancestry, estates, education, prospects, habits, friendships,
in short everything relating to you and your life are herein set
forth. Can you imagine wherefore I have singled you out, amid all my
innumerable cares, for this intense curiosity?”
“I cannot divine, your Majesty.”
Charles gave a single wave of his hand. Instantly the secretary and
attendant courtiers moved toward the door. I was about to follow when
he checked me by a glance of the eye. We were quite alone ere he
spoke again. Then he resumed in the former slow, passionless voice.
“Conte di Palaestro, this Luther you have seen fit to befriend has
caused me sore disquietude. And wherefore? Not because he is not a
heretic. The Church has spoken against him. That for me is enough.”
He crossed himself with deliberate piety. “We Hapsburgs are ever
loyal sons of the Church. But wherefore is Luther strong? Because
while uttering his heresy he has also voiced the wrath that is nursed
through all Christendom against the sins and worldliness of Rome. Not
that Luther is so strong, but that Rome is so open to attack; that is
what makes good sons of the Church, even as I, tremble at the days
before us. Do you understand?”
“I follow the Emperor’s argument.”
“A hundred and forty years ago was the Great Schism; a pope at
Avignon and a Pope at Rome anathematizing one another; Christendom
shuddered. The Church was rent in twain. The Hussite heresy rose.
Then later at the great Council of Constance, the schism was healed.
Hus was sent to the fire. The Church seemed even as before; but
wise men wagged their heads, ‘A second schism will not be healed
so easily. Let the Vatican repent of its sins. Let the Pope and
Cardinals be true shepherds of their sheep.’ That was a hundred
years ago. How has Rome learned the lesson? Have recent Popes been
better or worse than those of the days of the schism?--Innocent
VIII, whose deeds made his name a mockery; Alexander VI, mixing his
Borgia poisons and plotting with his son Caesare; Julius II, storming
a smoking breach in his cuirass; Leo X, chattering Latin poetry and
writing me lying letters about seizing hamlets in Italy, when lo!
half of Europe is about to revolt against him! What, I say, have
these ‘Servants of the Servants of God’ done to avert the day of
trouble now come upon them? Answer if you may, Conte di Palaestro.”
As Charles had proceeded his eye had lit up, while his voice rang
clearly.
“Nothing, Sire. But your Majesty surely argues in no manner to please
the foes of Luther.”
“I am no friend of Luther,” he retorted, growing cold, “mark you
that. But of these men of Rome I am become unutterably weary. Leo
opposed my election as Emperor. I know the value of his promises to
aid me against France. I owe him nothing. I will not spare him. I
will save the Church but I will save it by scourging Rome. I have
Germany, the Low Countries, Naples, Spain, the Indes,--God has
given me power enough,--ha! All the world will thank me. In yonder
portfolio are the _gravamina_, the bills of complaints against the
exactions and evil doings of the Papalists, and signed by the most
orthodox of German princes, men who would hurry Luther to the stake.
Now for this task of purging I need a _man_.”
He spoke the last word almost fiercely, and his eyes were upon me.
“Conte di Palaestro, I need a man of good physical presence who will
win the imaginations of the unthinking when they look on him; a man
who knows Germany, that he may espouse truly the demands of Germany;
who knows Italy, that he may meet Italian craft with craft; who is
of the learning to win scholars, the breeding to win princes, the
experience in manipulating men to surmount obstacles; who has an
iron will and is not prone to shrink from difficulties; finally, one
whom I may trust to serve me implicitly in return for the honors I
will gladly heap upon him.”
Still he looked on me, and I was listening; but he had not finished.
“That man I will send to Italy clothed with the plenitude of my
power. He will go to Rome and speak to Pope and Curia as they have
never been admonished before. He will command the Vatican to purge
itself of the extortions and malefactions which have made the name
of Rome a byword and a hissing. Pluralities, first-fruits, nepotism,
indulgence hawking, expectatives, every other gross evil, shall cease
altogether. Nay, that part of Luther’s doctrine which impartial
divines pronounce good and truly Catholic shall be embedded in the
doctrine of the Church. My high deputy shall do all these things.
If the Vatican hesitate, he shall have behind him every pikeman of
Castile, every lanz-knecht of Germany. And _then_ even Rome will hear
him.”
He paused, evidently expecting me to say something, and I made shift
to remark.
“To find the ambassador the Emperor desires will be hard.”
His eyes cut me through at a glance.
“I have found him. He is here.”
Involuntarily my eyes roved around the room in a kind of maze.
Then Charles spoke again. His tone was passionless and prosaic. “He
is yourself. I have studied your career and qualifications closely.
You are both German and Italian. Because you are in a measure a
dreamer is no disadvantage. You will therefore follow your object
the more devotedly. You will have vast obstacles to overcome, but
you will surmount them. I will bestow on you, if you wish, a Spanish
dukedom, so that you may take rank above all great personages, save
reigning princes. You will not at first display armed force at Rome,
but armed force shall not fail you when you summon it. I know Leo de’
Medici. He will rage, threaten, but he will not fight. You will win
the praise of all good Catholics and of your Emperor.”
For an instant as Charles spoke I felt my senses reeling. I turned
hot, then cold. I was thankful I was not pressed for instant reply.
When at length he paused I strove desperately to answer calmly.
“Your Majesty has overwhelmed me. What am I to say? Regenstein and
Palaestro are noble houses, but we are not princes of the blood.”
“I am satisfied with your nobility,” was the imperturbable answer.
“Your Majesty has omitted one thing. What is to be the disposition of
Luther?”
The Emperor frowned. The question, I instantly knew, was unwelcome,
but he answered it directly. “Inasmuch as this reformation is to be
made _for_ the Church and not against the Church, it is the more
needful that I avoid open countenance of heresy. Luther is manifestly
guilty of many matters touching not morals merely, but doctrines. He
must return to Wittenberg; there the ban of the Empire will be issued
against him, he will be seized and punished according to the ancient
law touching heretics.”
I stood in silence. Never had I felt my blood tingling more rapidly.
My eyes seemed dimmed, though not by tears. Charles was still
surveying me coldly, evidently expecting my answer. Realizing that to
continue the present situation was impossible, I fell on one knee,
and seized the Emperor’s left hand (which he yielded limply) and
kissed it, then spoke hurriedly. “Your magnificent generosity, Sire,
has deprived me of my reason. Until I regain it how dare I answer.
Pardon my prayer for an interval until to-morrow, ere I answer you.”
Charles’s pale face tinged with a faint shade of disappointment, but
he beckoned for me to rise.
“You, like your Luther,” he remarked with obvious irony, “take one
day to hear, the next to answer. But your prayer is granted. Give me
your word to-morrow when I breakfast.”
He touched a silver bell upon the table. Instantly the doors opened,
the attendants reëntered. As for me, I must have bowed decently, and
departed past them. Surely I walked as men walk in their sleep.
* * * * *
I was prepared to endure threats, dishonor, imprisonment, death for
the Cause--but not for this, dear God, not for this! No instant of
respite was granted me for the barest reflection. Even on the other
side of the cabinet doors a woman came towards me. I knew who she
was by the fall and rustle of her dress ere ever I raised my eyes.
It was Marianna. She wore a dress of sea green silk, close fitting
and exquisite. White flowers shone in her hair. But I have praised
her beauty often enough. I will not repeat. While I moved on in my
trance, while I saw the grave Spanish courtiers looking at me very
respectfully, as the man whom Majesty had honored with such privy
audience, I felt her arm being put within my own. She led me back to
the chamber above the Rhine where I had quitted Forli.
“Ah! Gualtiero, _mio carissimo_,” she was saying close to my ear,
“you have heard the Emperor, you have been offered the great embassy
to Rome, you will be the most famous man in the world. They will
worship the ground you tread upon,--ah! Gualtiero, Gualtiero.”
“He has offered it, yes, Madonna.” My mien and voice were doubtless
vacant and gloomy.
“Offered it? Mother of mercies, and you have not accepted it? You
turn mad!”
“I prayed his Majesty for permission to defer my answer until
to-morrow.”
She looked on me with eyes flashing at once infinite wrath and equal
compassion.
“Till to-morrow? The most imperial proffer ever made in the world?
The thing touching which my father came from Paris post-haste, and
has conferred with the Emperor two whole nights? Is it you that rave,
or do I not hear aright? Have you no words of gratitude to my father,
to me whose part has not been small?”
She had one hand upon either of my shoulders, and was trying to catch
me, to fascinate, snake-wise, with her glances. A little roughly I
put her away.
“Madonna Marianna,” spoke I, striving hard to control my powers, “for
all you have done for me, so far as it was done in friendly kindness,
I bring full gratitude. The Emperor has consented to await my answer,
you and your father cannot show greater importunity than he. But know
you this. My errand to Rome, if performed, will be a dreadful one.
Your father and his friends will cry out the loudest at my scourge. I
shall curry no more favor with His Holiness.”
“We understand, we clearly understand. My father made it most plain
to the Emperor he has no personal love for Leo. We know you will
never mar _our_ fortunes.”
I held out my hand, beckoning her to cease.
“Madonna, if indeed your devotion is not of word only, do me one
favor. Question me not, leave me unurged, unsolicited, this night and
during the morning. As a free man, with a free mind and will I must
decide the Emperor’s ‘yea’ or ‘nay.’ Therefore no more of this. But
tell me if I am a prisoner within this castle. What are the bounds to
my liberty?”
“Within the castle you are wholly free. The Emperor has come hither
with the Spaniards and Italians of his court to enjoy a few days of
respite from the “ja’s” and beer-swilling of your Germans at Worms.
The guards have orders to halt you at the gates. Inside go where
you will. You were brought here thus secretly that you might break
wholly with your heretic friends and your degraded past, that like a
new star you might emerge to shine dazzling in your true firmament
hereafter. Within this castle, saving a few menials and nuns, there
are only men and women of the South. To-night you resume that
glorious life broken off when the fiends tempted you to leave dear
Italy, the life of laughter and noble mirth, of sunshine amid the
roses.”
But again I forbade her words. Prompted by some angel, I asked a
question.
“You said there were some German nuns within the castle. How is that?”
“How can I recall the name? An abbess from a strange abbey. She
prefers residence here to the crowded town. Her chambers lie not far
from these. The abbey of Qued--your German names are so rough! _Santo
Dio_, you are white and fainting!”--
“I have been on the rack these days,” I said, clutching a pillar,
“you must bear with me. I need food and drink. Go from me, Madonna.
Leave me to my own thoughts, or by my father’s soul you are my foe
forever.”
My command was obeyed. She swept out of the room. I was too torn
myself to consider whether I had wounded her needlessly. Very soon a
smooth serving-man in the Forli livery brought in a tray covered with
tempting viands. Again I observed that the cookery was truly Italian,
the bottle of wine was from the Alban hills. But how could I complete
the illusion, when under my eyes from the casement flowed the mighty
Rhine, and the very breeze that fanned my cheeks carried the sniff of
the giant pines and the budding oaks and beeches of the Black Forest?
No, I was in Germany yet, and hard by was Worms, and in Worms was
Dr. Luther, who, Charles the Emperor had said, must be “punished
according to the ancient law concerning heretics.”
By an effort of self-command I made myself eat and drink. So doing I
became calmer. I knew that I had been taken by the devil up into the
exceeding high mountain, and shown all the kingdoms of the world, and
the glory of them, and all these would be given in return for one
little word of mine.
I could behold myself a very Hercules cleansing the Augean stables at
Rome. What havoc would I not work among the white-handed Monsignori?
I pictured to myself the casting out of their fair inamoratas,
their simpering page-boys, the restoration of monkish simplicity
at innumerable convents, the banishing of the huge swarm of Papal
chamberlains, of the notaries who fattened on unjust litigation, of
the general army of purchasers and sellers of ecclesiastical favor.
The chaste honest life of the Church in the days of her holy poverty
would return. Good men from all over the world would flock to second
my efforts, and the performance of the lords of the Vatican would at
length comply with their high profession, not weary God and man by
the perpetuation of one vast lie. All this seemed within the scope
of accomplishment. Was I not young? Was I not conscious of a mighty
reserve of talent and energy? Was not the mere fact that the Emperor
had chosen me as his instrument a token that I was well fitted to
succeed? Did I not know Leo de’ Medici as few others knew him; and
could I not even hope to make him my supple ally?
The vision, the possibilities, the questions, at times made my brain
reel. Thrice I arose, saying nigh audibly, “I accept, O Emperor.”
Thrice I sat. Clearer, ever clearer I knew acceptance of Charles
meant the forsaking of Luther, Ilsa, the Cause. And I seemed to hear
Dr. Luther’s great voice saying “What doth it profit a man if he gain
the whole world and lose his own soul.”
CHAPTER XXXII
I REFUSE CÆSAR
Late in the afternoon I roused myself from my reverie. I had now
chosen my path. I knew that no argument or consideration could swerve
me from it. The consciousness that I had made the decision raised my
spirits. In some measure at least I could divine the future. I asked
the honor of waiting upon Forli and Marianna, and when I met them
craved their pardon for my brusque behavior, explaining it, as well I
might, on the ground of all I had recently undergone. They pressed me
for my decision. I told them my first answer was for the Emperor, and
they were fain to wait, but their gleaming eyes and cheerful gestures
indicated that they regarded all omens as favorable.
“Ah! Gualtiero, we know that at your best, you can match the wits of
Caesare Borgia,” said the Cardinal, and then proceeded to tell with
gusto how the foreign noblemen surrounding the Emperor had arranged
an impromptu ball that evening, and that I was very welcome to
attend if only I would appear in domino--as would indeed many of the
guests. I consented, with an alacrity which no doubt heightened their
expectations.
So for one evening I seemed almost recalled again to the Southland.
A masker’s dress was provided, sufficiently resplendent in gold lace
and Flanders point to satisfy a Venetian magnifico. One of Forli’s
clever valets completed my toilet with a skill worthy of Andrea. When
I drew my domino over my eyes, and stepped out into the corridors
already full of silk trains and scarlet bravery, instinctively I
felt the senses quicken, the blood rise. For the moment I was living
even as I had lived before I heard the dread name--Luther.
A great hall of the castle had been used for the fête. A thousand
candles swung from their hanging sconces. Fresh leaves and spring
flowers hid the barren walls behind. From a bower of laurel sounded
music, harps, and tender viols, and the music was not the stately
rhythms of the north, but the pulsating, stuccato melodies of Italy
or Spain. Under the lights moved all the high dames and dignitaries
of Castile, Aragon and Naples who had followed the court of the
Emperor; Spaniards with their stately grace, Italians whose vivacious
talk was as much with their hands as with their tongues. From under
the masks I saw dark eyes that had learned to flash languorously in
the orange-groves of Seville or Palermo. On an easy divan by one
entrance lounged Forli, smiling benignantly from his red cap and robe
upon us all, yet lamenting that years and churchly dignity forbade
him to join in the revelry. In and out of the thronging dancers went
a woman in a lustrous yellow dress, its color made vivid by its
trimming of black. The closeness of the fit and the low cut neck
displayed her figure rarely. Despite her mask I knew that half the
company identified her.
“Oh, marvellous creature,” raved a Sicilian beside me, “the form of
Venus, and the mouth of Juno! Who is she?”
“Ask not too many questions,” replied a more contained Spaniard;
“piety toward Holy Church forbids. For the sake of naming her, let me
call her the Cardinal’s ‘niece.’”
“Ha!” laughed the Sicilian. “I understand.”
But even as he spoke I saw the Portuguese ambassador, in all his
cloth of gold, bow to Marianna, and an instant later she whirled down
the great hall as his partner. The spirit of the hour was upon me.
Captured by the swaying music I offered myself to a tall, stiffly
dressed Castilian, to my belief the Duchess of Lerida, and found her
a very happy companion. Other dances followed. I forgot everything
in the spirit of the hour. I was almost unconscious of the flight of
time, as I exchanged harmless badinage with some Italian lady whose
accent was Venetian,--when the voice of the master-ushers sounded,
“His Majesty the Emperor!”
Charles entered by an upper doorway. Ten flunkeys carrying tall
candelabra marched before him, making his entrance one blaze of
light. The music stopped an instant, then revived in a fiercer,
swifter strain. The Emperor seated himself upon an armchair upon a
low dais, and I saw him despatch a page to summon Forli. The Cardinal
joined the sovereign upon the dais, and conversed long. I would have
given much to have overheard them. When the dancing resumed, by a
kind of mutual consent all the revellers held back to make way for
a _passionesa_. A tall Spanish gentleman advanced to the middle of
the floor. He wore a long blue cloak reaching to his heels. To meet
him came my lady of the yellow dress. Never had I seen Marianna
dance more rarely. They went through the difficult figures with
marvellous grace, leaping very high, advancing, retreating, sometimes
almost sinking into one another’s arms, but never touching, and
always facing one another. The hall rang with applause. I heard the
Emperor’s “bravo!”
As the general dancing resumed I brought myself beside Marianna. Old
instinct made me bow her my invitation. She held out her hands. Once
in the dance I almost regretted my boldness. She was like a wild
thing under my touch. Faster and faster we whirled, and her face
was very close to mine. I felt her hot breath on my cheeks. On my
forehead was the intoxicating touch of her flying hair. A strange
feeling of enchantment, bending my will, subverting my powers,
seemed stealing over me.
“Gualtiero,” she said out of lips all red and pearls, “Gualtiero! I
have conquered, have conquered! _Caro mio!_ let us dance and dance
forever!”
But I would not kiss her, not even when we swung under the shadowy
pillars by the musicians. The dance ended. I disengaged her arm,
alleging that I saw a great French nobleman glancing her way, and of
a truth it was probably the Comte de Ponthieu who danced with her
next. Yet despite his well-trained gracefulness, it was a very cold
and unresponding lady he led about the room.
Then as I stood watching the swaying glittering hall, the hollowness,
the mockery of all this spectacle swept across my soul with a kind
of nausea. Here were we, the noble and mighty of Christendom dancing
our nights away while God’s truth was being crucified, while human
wrong and sin went unreproved, while Dr. Luther lay at Worms with the
ban of the Empire about to be fulmined against him. I was at the end
of my masker’s mood. The dancers were already beginning to scatter
toward their several apartments. I went toward the rooms which had
been placed at my disposal by Forli.
I had drunk again from the Southern goblet. The first taste had been
sweet, but the dregs were bitter.
* * * * *
As I left the festival hall no one seemed watching me, and for an
instant a wild thought entered my mind of slipping past the guards,
and out into the wide night and freedom. But it was unlikely that I
would be allowed to pass the gate, and an unlucky attempt would make
my last condition far worse than my present. One thing, however, I
felt bound to do. Wandering around the great complex of passages,
galleries, and cabinets that made up the state apartments of the
castle, I stumbled upon a yawning serving-man, who was evidently
one of the regular denizens of the residence, and very glad to find
a soul among his new guests who could speak a word of German. From
him (with a little well-feigned questioning) I readily learned where
lay the chambers of the Abbess of Quedlinburg, and thither I took my
steps. I was not mad enough to try to penetrate the chambers of nuns,
and I knew the chances were all against accomplishing anything, but
to lie down under the same roof that covered Ilsa and make no effort
in her behalf and my own comported neither with love nor courage.
And then for once Fortuna (treacherous lady!), was not wholly unkind.
Near the entrance way to the abbess’s apartments I found a balcony
which by vast good luck actually overhung the great hall from on
high. The dancers were dispersing now; the tall candles were flaring
down in their sockets, but the weary viols were still scraping out
their last numbers. In the balcony, intent on the sights of splendor
below, I caught the leaning forms of two or three women. There was
light enough for me to see them clearly. By their dress they were
beyond doubt lay servitors of Quedlinburg, and my heart beat faster.
Now or never I must play my game. Drawing my domino closer across my
face, and adopting a rolling gait as if I were a cavalier who had
partaken too freely of the _aqua vitae_, I came up boldly.
“Holla! my fine wenches,” cried I, in affectedly broken German, “I
swear there has been a pretty sight down there under your eyes, but
not so pretty as if some of you had been dancing yourselves.”
The girls looked up, scared and simpering. They were quite of a class
to take kindly to the advances of any individual with a mustache and
the clothes of a gentleman.
“Oh! gentle sir!” began the boldest, “you make us blush. Surely you
do not mean your fine words.”
“Of a truth I do, by St. Maria. There is no countess or duchess down
below with a whiter neck and a slimmer waist than yours, my pretty.”
And here with an abandon that did me credit as an actor, I put my
sinful hand around the very body of one of the girls--to wit, Trude,
with that mingling of force and cozening which will make the average
country hussy pledge her soul.
“Oh! sir, oh! sir,” began she, turning very red, “I am a poor but
honest maid. My father is an honest man. I do not know you--”
“Come, come, my lass,” I enjoined, “I mean not the least mischief,
just that you walk with me a few turns in the gallery. If my Lady
Abbess’s maids wish to sit up late to watch his Majesty’s ball, they
surely must pay the dance-groschen afterward.”
The other women cast envious glances at Trude. She hung back an
instant, modestly fighting against the delicious flattery of being
favored by even a tipsy gentleman in such fine clothes. I knew she
dared not make outcry. Her mistress would never forgive such a breach
of decorum by her servants as watching out the imperial ball, when
they should have been in bed. In a moment I had her around the corner
of the gallery where it was dark, and with no one listening in case
she gave a little scream. Then my hand around her waist relaxed. I
spoke to her in the broad Harzland brogue. When I told her who I
was, she all but fainted; but speedily, being indeed a girl of good
fundamentals, recovered herself, and listened to me.
I told her rapidly but completely the story of how I came to be in
the castle, and explained at least a part of my former relations to
the Forlis, and my present predicament. Only the proffer made me by
the Emperor I kept hid. That was a matter I scarcely dared to open
even to my own soul. When I had finished this I began to press her to
use every means to communicate with Graf Moritz and Adolf and her
own father as to my captivity, and to urge them to set some manner of
watch to discover whither I might be carried in custody. “For though
I seem so free to-night,” I concluded, “I fear much I shall not be so
free to-morrow, but again in close custody.”
To my entreaties, however, Trude shook her head. She said the
abbess had withdrawn Ilsa from Worms because her mistress had
become thoroughly suspicious lest in some occult way her niece was
giving room to thoughts and deeds unlawful; and that Trude herself
was suffering from this same treatment. She had not been permitted
to leave the castle since entering, and as for Ilsa, her aunt had
confined her in a narrow chamber on bread and water. “No one in the
castle talks anything but Italian or Spanish gibberish,” the poor
girl asserted. “I have no friends. The sight of so many strangers
scares me. I know not what to do. Ach! _liebe Gott_, I wish we were
all safely back in the Harzland!” A sentiment wherein I am sure I
heartily joined.
Time was flying. I dared not linger with her longer. It was torturing
to know that behind closed doors, so near at hand, was my Lady Ilsa,
and that to her I could speak not one syllable; but what must be,
must. I heartened Trude as best I could, promised a great reward if
I got my liberty through her, and as a final bait told her that I
would make any young peasant on whom she might cast eyes into a rich
farmer. Then I took my leave, after sundry short but tender messages
to Ilsa. Trude could only promise “to do her best,” but I was a
little comforted. Sooner or later she at least was bound to regain
her liberty of action, and I knew she was a girl of resources and
energy.
Returning to the Forli chambers, I met the Cardinal as he was being
divested of his regalia, and he congratulated me upon my fine
appearance at the ball.
“Many spoke of ‘that elegant masked nobleman’ and how charmingly
he wore his clothes and swept down the floor with the ladies. Ah!
Gualtiero, you will win vast credit for us yet. The Emperor was more
certain than ever that he has chosen aright.”
I fear I was not enthusiastic in my answer. I slept soundly, the good
bed under me being a notable improvement upon the prison pallet. When
I awoke in the morning it was already late. One of the Cardinal’s
smiling valets was at my side to tell me that the Emperor breakfasted
shortly before noon, and that I was expected to appear then for
audience. Again an irreproachable costume had been laid out for me,
nor was anything omitted to enable me to look the part of the man
whom the sovereign delighted to honor. I did not see Forli, but I was
informed that he would be present at the audience. By the time my own
toilet was completed and I had eaten some white rolls washed down
with a little excellent wine, the noon hour was at hand and another
smiling gentleman usher conducted me into the Emperor’s breakfast
room.
I had heard that Charles was an immoderate eater, and my eyes
confirmed the tale. He sat in solitary state at a broad table,
dressed as always in immaculate black, relieved only by a small cap
of deep purple. Silent-footed pages bore in and out the large silver
platters of roasts and highly spiced pasties. His Majesty had in
truth a most Bœotian appetite, cutting off huge pieces of the hearty
dishes, thrusting into his mouth large squares of bread, and at times
signing to his body physician, a grave Bolognese, who would hand him
a silver cup of wine duly admixed with some cordial. In the open
space before the table a deformed Moorish buffoon in his motley, with
a small ape, went through a series of antics at which the Emperor
occasionally deigned a smile. When I entered Charles cast me one
glance of recognition, then went on eating heartily, while by a door
opposite I saw Forli join us. We remained standing until the Emperor
thrust back the last plate, and the pages had cleared the board. Then
the cold, penetrating eyes of Charles, those eyes so young in years,
yet old in intellect, were turned upon me. At a nod the courtiers and
pages fell back beyond range of low conversation.
“Well, Conte di Palaestro,” spoke the Emperor bluntly, in French,
“you have considered. Your answer?”
I felt as if a bowstring were tightened around my chest, but I think
my voice and mien were steady.
“May it please your Majesty, with a deep sense of the loyalty which
I owe the Emperor, and speaking with the profoundest gratitude for
the high favor I have been accorded, I am constrained to decline your
Majesty’s magnificent proffer.”
The blood mounted to Charles’s brow. The lip on his projecting jaw
curled.
“I had not expected this, Conte di Palaestro. My commands are
commonly obeyed.”
I bowed obediently. “That which the Emperor commands me as Conte or
Graf I execute with all diligence. It is when the Emperor proposes
for me a commission to Rome proper only for a prince of the blood I
feel compelled to draw back.”
Charles reached for a quill from a plate, and picked his teeth
nervously. His frown was very black. “Your reasons,” he ordered
brusquely.
“I will answer your Majesty even to the risk of offence. The Emperor
would send me to Rome to enforce certain outward reforms upon Pope
and Curia, which reforms it may prove needful to compel at the
culverin’s mouth. At the same time Martin Luther, instigator of these
reforms, is to be burned as a heretic. I would to God the venality
and worldliness of the Curia might cease, but will the Emperor
believe me in this,--the mere cleansing of the Vatican will be only
as the cooling of the forehead of a man wasting with fever; comfort
for the instant, but never the cure. We of the party of Luther would
go beyond these palliatives. It is perverted faith which has led to
perverted morals. The dogma and doctrine of the Church seem to us
wholly wrong, so utterly beyond repair we may never mend them. Let
us, therefore, turning reverently to the Scriptures, build with God’s
help a better Church, exempt from the inveterate errors of the old.”
“Holy Mother!” swore Charles, half rising. “I asked you, sirrah, for
a personal answer. I am given a heretical sermon.”
I faced him steadily. A greater than Carolus Quintus would not have
shaken me in the mood that held me then.
“Take not my refusal, Sire, as ungrateful churlishness. The Emperor’s
opinion and Luther’s differ as to the crying need of the Church. With
all loyalty to the Emperor, my conscience binds me to the opinion of
Luther.”
Charles surveyed me with mingled wonderment and wrath. “You are not
flattering, Monsieur. The Wittenberg heretic is preferred by you to
myself.”
“Then let me name a higher authority. Your Majesty would reform the
old Church. In other words, new wine should be put into very old and
rotten wineskins. A wiser and mightier than the Emperor has long
since asserted that this cannot be done.”
The Emperor laid down his knife, and his suspicious scrutiny grew
keener.
“Monsieur, if I did not know by indubitable evidence that you
had thwarted the cleverest Papal agents in your intrigues to win
the northern princes to Luther, if I did not know you had almost
persuaded Leo himself to withhold his Bull, I could scarce believe
you sane. Tell me now, on your knightly word, do you profess your
true reasons for rejecting the fairest proffer ever made by prince to
subject?”
I bowed low. “Your Majesty has been pleased to seek some hidden
motive in my words. I will speak more boldly. This man whom Rome and
the Emperor deem worthy of the fire, I, with millions of others,
esteem a saint. I have walked with him, talked with him, lived with
him. Wizard or apostle as men may call him, for _me_ at least he has
been the restorer of hope in God and of joy in living. He has made
me know that even a reformed and chastened Rome shall no more lord
it over the souls of men. I dare to enroll this banned heretic as
an apostle worthy of the right hand of God, and for Martin Luther
and his cause I will spend my uttermost powers. I know I have not
satisfied your Majesty. Yet it is better to seem even to offend the
Emperor than to pawn one’s soul.”
We confronted one another silently for a moment, then Charles spoke
with ominous mildness. “You appreciate, monsieur, that the rejection
of the proffer I have made you under the conditions which you create,
will lead to serious consequences for yourself. I cannot leave you as
a firebrand to scatter your sparks through northern Germany.”
“I am entirely aware of the Emperor’s probable disfavor. I counted
the cost before I made my answer.”
“But consider well, Conte di Palaestro. I am not wont to supplicate.
Yet I have no other instrument ready for this stroke at Rome. I have
pitched entirely on you. Do not let fantastic reasons ruin you.”
“Can the Emperor spare Dr. Luther?” I threw out, with a gleam of hope.
“Impossible. He will return to Wittenberg. Perhaps ere the ban can be
enforced, which will be some few weeks or even months, he will see
reason and recant. Otherwise there is only one law for him.”
“Then,” I responded firmly, “I shall only deceive the Emperor by
affecting to reconsider. I cannot go to Rome for your Majesty.”
All this time I had never taken my eyes from Charles, to let them
wander to the listening Forli. Now with a dry “ha!” the sovereign
turned abruptly to the Cardinal. The prelate’s round face was
exceedingly sour.
“You have heard this fellow,” spoke Charles, with a disdainful
gesture toward myself.
“_Misericordia!_ every word, Sire, oh! the foul _ammaliamento_, the
witchcraft. Perhaps when Luther is burned and returned to his father
the devil, the spell will vanish. My heart is torn at the despite he
has shown your Majesty.”
“He has at least saved his Holiness at Rome for a while from an
unpleasant hour,” spoke Charles, biting off his words one by one.
“The sapience of your Eminence will no doubt discover the precise
nature of his mad infection presently. It is sufficient that he
will not execute my commands, and he is therefore remanded to your
custody.”
The Emperor raised his hand. A Spanish guards-captain approached
instantly, and stood at attention. Then again Charles spoke. “This
nobleman here is under arrest. It is to be understood that he is
mentally unpoised and irresponsible. His Eminence of Forli has
consented to conduct him back to his friends and estates in Italy.
For many high reasons this case is to be kept from vulgar rumor. You
will take the prisoner back to the Cardinal’s apartments, and later
the Cardinal will keep him in such a manner of custody as he may
prefer, and take such measures as he may see fit for the conveyance
of this unfortunate man to Italy.”
The officer’s hands fell on my shoulder. I drew myself up calmly, and
offered him my walking sword. It was indeed a pitiful weapon, and he
almost smiled as he took it.
“You see I am not a dangerous maniac, señor,” said I, under breath;
then I bowed ceremoniously to the Emperor. He looked after me with
his hard, fishlike eyes. Never again did I meet him face to face.
Often I think of him, as he who might, had Heaven opened his vision,
have been the friend, not the foe, of the Reformation; and by his
skilful fostering of the Cause, have saved infinite tumult, and
hatred, and blood; yea, have saved Christendom from being severed
into two cursing and hostile camps. But it was not so ordered,
and let no man forget that his Spanish mother was the daughter of
Isabella the Catholic. Judge him not harshly; yet I hold he was one
of the world’s wise and mighty, who saw the hour of opportunity at
hand, and then in Dante’s phrase, “made the great refusal.”...
All the way back to his chambers Forli followed me, his face crimson,
and gnawing at his rings in sheer rage. Then he burst out, bellowing
the words into my face.
“Fool!” he cried, “fool! German, German sheep and fool!”
As for me, I walked to my captivity right happily; I had not betrayed
my soul.
* * * * *
I had expected to be flung back into my prison cell, but that was
spared me. On the contrary, I was allowed almost the same apartments
as before, except now in my rooms all the windows were so high and
small it was impossible to peer from them. There could be no illusion
as to my fate, however. Hardly had I returned from the Emperor when a
low-browed armorer entered, and stood before me sheepishly.
“It is commanded, your Lordship. Take no offence.” And with that
apology, and with a grin possibly sympathetic, he proceeded to snap
about my ankles and wrists fetters, light indeed and not painful, but
connected by thin, keenly tempered chains which effectively prevented
me from taking more than the shortest step, or even moving my hands
enough for elegant eating. Hardly was he gone, than after him came
Forli’s chief body-servant with bowl, razor, and shears, who with a
smirk fit to enrage a Socrates, bade me to submit whilst he shaved
off my mustache and beard, and clipped my hair exceeding close, thus
altering my whole appearance.
When this second emissary had departed I was fain to cast myself upon
an armchair. The touch of the steel had set all my senses tingling. I
held out my manacled wrists before my eyes as though I were gazing on
something wholly apart from my own identity.
“And yet, and yet,” I repeated aloud in a kind of wonderment, “an
hour ago, on my bare word to the Emperor ‘I accept your service,’ I
could have been envied by all the world. And now--” my voice broke in
what was neither a sob nor a laugh, “I am truly glad!”
Nor was this last hypocrisy. I was in one of those strangely exalted
states, wherein all the common goods of life seem to take on values
wholly new. I seemed a prisoner as hopelessly as if I were immured
in a Castilian Inquisition dungeon, or spiked to the bench in the
Turkish galleys. I knew there was every chance that Forli would be
able to execute his purpose of conducting me unhindered to Italy, and
once there I knew enough of the bolts and bars of Papal palazzos to
be sure of going forth a free man perhaps never, perhaps only when
my hair was bleached to snow. Yet I refused to despair, I refused to
tell myself I had played the fool and authorized Forli’s anathemas. I
knew that what I had done that day would stand justified to Ilsa, to
Luther, to God. I cared for little else. And again, even as I felt of
the strange steel upon my wrists, and heard the clink of the chains,
it was brought home to me that I was to do some other signal service
for the Cause, that in some great way, I knew not how, Luther and
I had not been sundered forever; that I must keep my head clear,
my senses alert, my courage ready. Perhaps the call would come only
after years of weary prison, perhaps in an hour; only let me not fail
to do my part.
So passed that day, and so several others, and I was buoyed up by an
unnatural kind of excitement which I think made Forli and my keepers
sadly puzzled when they looked for some sinking of spirit. Then at
length on a morning as I sat striving to read the Cardinal’s new
copy of Musæus, Forli himself entered and with him some high Italian
ecclesiastic whom I did not recognize, but who doubtless was a member
of the Papal legation. The newcomer started at sight of my ornaments,
and Forli deliberately tapped his forehead and shook his head sadly.
“The case I have mentioned. Very pitiful. A fine young cavaliere
utterly bewitched by the heretics. I am conducting him back to Italy
with as little noise as possible. We need not fear to talk freely
before him. He can do nothing.”
I understood entirely that Forli had arranged to hold the dialogue in
that place for my particular benefit, but that could not prevent me
from being all ears.
“I understand the great heretic leaves Worms to-morrow,” continued
the Cardinal.
“Even so, Eminenza. He has refused all the terms of accommodation
proffered him by the Archbishop of Trier and other prelates, who went
to the very verge of true faith to recall him. He stands steadfast in
his blasphemies.”
“Then he will return to Wittenberg, and there await the issuing of
the Imperial ban?”
“Such will happen, unless your Eminence can persuade the Emperor to
violate the safe-conduct, and surrender him immediately.”
“The Emperor is stubbornly fixed. He declares his word is pledged.
‘He does not wish to blush like Kaiser Sigismund, who surrendered
Hus at Constance.’ He will not recall his pledges.”
The other prelate shook his head. “Then Mahomet escapes. The ban
of the Empire is a fearfully slow weapon. Luther goes back to
Wittenberg, and is surrounded by his friends. There are all manner of
legal delays. Perhaps armies are raised for him in Saxony. Charles is
about to lock horns with Francis. If the first battle goes in favor
of the French, the Emperor will dare to do nothing to enrage the
Elector of Saxony. A thousand zechins that Luther goes free!”
“He shall not,” asserted Forli, with a stamp.
“I trust your Eminence can persuade the Emperor, then.”
To which the Cardinal answered with a very vulpine laugh.
“_Caro amico_, it is a true saying of old Cosimo de’ Medici that
‘you cannot govern a state with paternosters,’ nor save the Church
either, as I add. The Emperor is too scrupulous. Good, then, His
Holiness’s legate must act without him. My mission here to Worms has
been quasi-private. I can readily depart on some pretext and make
no tongues chatter. I have often travelled incognito as a French
nobleman. It will be very easy to overtake _il grande heretico_ at
some dark turn of the road, and carry him off bodily, as easily
as, well,--as I shall carry off this unfortunate crazed gentleman.
If there is danger of rescue, then,” Forli’s finger passed lightly
across his throat, “but you will see how I shall entirely prosper.
There will be a bonfire yet in the Piazza di San Pietro.”
The second Italian regarded Forli in a kind of hesitant admiration.
“You are magnificent, Eminenza, but consider the risk of scandal! The
Emperor will be furious.”
“The Emperor will know nothing for long. Nothing until our fine friar
is safe and snug in Italy or lying with his throat cut. Luther will
simply vanish from sight. Good Catholics will hold that his friend
the devil has flown off with him. Then at last when the truth leaks
out, bah! the Emperor will prove a very sensible man.”
“The Cardinal of Forli speaks with the just confidence of an
Alexander.”
“An Alexander Borgia,” quoth the other, smiling subtlely. “Come,
Monsignore, we have much more to talk of, and we will leave this poor
gentleman to compose his crazed wits by reading.”
CHAPTER XXXIII
ILSA VICTRIX
On Friday, May 3, 1521, a date never to be forgotten in my memory,
quite early in the morning the Vicomte de Barras left Marburg with
a portion of his company, on some hurried expedition, the precise
object whereof he was not careful to announce. His niece with another
portion of his cortège remained behind at the commodious _Blauer
Engel_ Inn. It was understood at the inn that there also remained
behind the unfortunate crazed gentleman, whom it was necessary to
chain and, at times, lest his cries become highly distressing,
even to gag, and whom the Vicomte was conveying to his kinsfolk in
Gascony. It is possible that some one of the inn servants imagined
that the Vicomte talked with his people in a strange dialect sounding
more Italian than French, but after all foreigners were foreigners in
a small German city, and certainly the Vicomte was charmingly free
with his money.
The good folk of Marburg would surely have marvelled much had they
known how that nobleman rode out of Worms a few days before with a
red cassock and a red hat, taking ceremonious leave of His Majesty’s
courtiers, as being about to revisit France to exercise the good
offices of the Vatican in behalf of peace. A few leagues his company
had travelled straight westward, then at a solitary spot in the
road the master of the party had given a sly laugh. The cavalcade
had halted. He of the red robe had dismounted, had exchanged his
red gown and hat for a very secular blue doublet and cloak, and a
gray hat with a rakish heron’s feather. At his side he had girded
a long Toledo. Presto! the Cardinale di Forli had vanished, the
Vicomte de Barras took command. The retainers had given a shout of
approval. The melancholy, crazed nobleman had been allowed to peer
out of the windows of his closed coach. The beautiful niece of the
Vicomte had clapped her hands, crying in admiration “_Voila, le
galant gentilhomme!_” Then the leader had remounted, and briskly led
the way, not westward now, but northward, passing close to Mainz but
not entering that city, crossing the Rhine near Bingen, not on the
regular ferry, but on the barge of some obscure water-man they hired
towards evening. They had lain over that night at Rudesheim, then
continued their travels very quietly, avoiding frequented roads,
yet occasionally halting (so their most unfortunate prisoner could
understand), to inquire of peasants and wayfarers, “Whether the
famous Dr. Luther had returned from Worms that way?”
It was misinformation upon this point which undoubtedly brought them
to Marburg, for a false rumor made that much discussed theologian
take the northerly route towards Hesse, whereas later and more
authentic tidings reported him as travelling by way of Frankfurt
and Hersfeld. When the party had come to Marburg and discovered
themselves upon a wrong scent the Vicomte was heard to indulge in
many brisk oaths, proper indeed for a secular nobleman, though they
would have been deplorable in the Cardinale di Forli. On the morning
in question the Vicomte had held a rapid colloquy with his niece,
wherein it appeared that it was necessary to overtake Dr. Luther
with speed, and also necessary to keep their crazed prisoner in sure
custody (it being possible to convey him only in the heavy closed
coach). The Vicomte therefore resolved to take his best horses and
the better part of his men and to ride post on his errand, while the
lady with her maid and four of their less active varlets would remain
to guard the prisoner and await directions as to rejoining her uncle.
At about seven in the morning the Vicomte rode away. From a chamber
window that luckily commanded a little view of the inn court the
“melancholy crazed nobleman” (so the servants called him) could
see the company depart. The Vicomte, despite his girth, carried
himself excellently on a powerful stallion. His eight followers
included three who professed themselves Frenchmen (“surely Gascons,
they were so dark”), and five Rhinelanders and Swabians, tow-pated
jail fledglings, strange birds to see in the retinue of so genteel
a cavalier, “but, after all, honest Germans did not like to take
service with foreigners, and travellers must take what rascals
presented themselves for hire.”
The prisoner saw the Vicomte depart. The clatter of hoofs died
on the cobble-paved street. Dead silence seemed to reign through
the inn broken only by the ticking of the great clock which stood
behind the door of the room occupied by the presumable madman. The
prisoner leaned on the casement, and studied for the twentieth time
the view across the red roofs of the little city to the graceful
green hill where rose Landgraf Philip’s sturdy Schloss. He had
been in Marburg before and knew that behind the inn ran the swift
green Lahn, and that the winding streets of the town made it among
the most picturesque in all picturesque Hesse. All this, however,
did not relieve the fact that he was manacled hand and foot, and
that a sullen, taciturn fellow, whose grunts seemed to prove him a
Hollander, sat by his door with a heavy partisan. This was indeed
only proper, considering the danger of the poor nobleman doing
himself a mischief, yet it could hardly raise that individual’s
spirits.
About ten o’clock, after long contemplation at the window, and after
being rewarded by nothing more exciting than the sight of a vast
flock of geese sweeping its hissing, honking way along before the
skilful snapping of the whip of the blue-kerchiefed goose girl, the
prisoner turned wearily back to the table, sat himself and began
turning a Seneca’s _De Clementia_ which his captors had thoughtfully
allowed him. The prisoner was exceeding quiet, and beyond possibly a
certain hectic flush betrayed no signs of his occasional insanity,
at least so his guardian Jan Praet may well have cogitated. From
the Weinstube below came a drinking song, indicating how Jan’s
three companions were whiling the time away. It is certain he found
watching the prisoner a tedious duty and allowed his thoughts and
gaze to wander.
About half past ten one of the inn servitors came into the room,
alleging he must fill the water jugs. Immediately he called attention
to what Jan had not noticed before, that the hand of the clock was
sadly broken and ready to fall off, a fact which (asserted the
varlet) would make the landlord exceeding angry, and likely to
visit his wrath upon the unlucky speaker as being careless. Jan was
sympathetic. The injury was such as a skilful tinker could mend in
only a few moments. Was there such a man about the inn? Jan professed
himself a stranger. The other declared that he believed there seemed
to be a clever fellow in the company “of the other great folk who
came yesterday.” He might be approached by means of an extra seidel
filched from the keg room. Would Jan object if some one came at once
to mend the clock? It would save the poor varlet at the least from a
beating.
Jan hesitated. The lady had clearly ordered it, ‘no one in the
room with this prisoner except the inn servants, and then only for
a moment.’ Still what harm would it do? ‘The poor gentleman was
always so melancholy and silent. “Jan would look the other way, if
he also had had an extra seidel and the fellow were quick about his
business.”’
The varlet went out. The prisoner indeed sat very still. For days
now the prisoner had been extremely still. Possibly in his heart he
had resolved upon a policy of absolute passivity and non-resistance,
until his guardians, convinced that the iron had sunk deep into his
soul, should cease to maintain their catlike vigilance. In any case
he seemed very intent upon the _De Clementia_.
Presently there was another rap upon the door. The question of Jan
was answered in very broken German, that ‘here was one who could
mend the clock.’ A strange, bent, red-headed man entered, who cast a
single sidling glance upon the prisoner, then turned away, leaving
the prisoner to stare at him and wonder, “where have I seen those
eyes before.” He laid down a few tools and addressed himself to the
clock. Jan affected to be interested; “Are you a regular tinker?”
“_Mon dieu!_ no! I am in the company of her Reverence the Abbess who
came yesterday. I have only a little skill in such matters.”
“So you are another Frenchman?”
“_Oui_,” the prisoner however could swear as to the Italian accent.
“I am a right Norman, from Rouen; do not insult me by calling me a
Gascon like those rascals with the Vicomte.”
The prisoner now was staring at the stranger very hard, but Jan did
not observe him.
“Surely it is tedious here,” commented the tinker, removing the hand
from the clock. “Is this poor gentleman often violent?”
“They tell me he is. Anyway I am well paid to watch him.”
“A fly could watch him, he is so firmly chained.”
“Well, orders are orders. You must hasten. Finish with the clock.”
“Mon ami,” quoth the other, “I can never finish with anything while
that sweet breath of yours is coming over my shoulder, and you are
watching every turn of my fingers. Ha! what’s that by the door. A
pigeon, I swear.”
“A pigeon, I don’t understand.”
“A pigeon in petticoats, oaf! Look and see if I’m right.”
A comely maid was indeed lingering just outside the door. The hang of
her red kirtle, the droop of her mouth, said one thing clearly, “Come
and talk to me.” Jan did not wait for a second invitation.
By this time the prisoner had lost all interest in Seneca’s _De
Clementia_.
Still with his back to the prisoner the red-headed stranger spoke
suddenly though softly, and this time all his words were Italian.
“Eccellenza, have the chains that confine your feet spread out
smoothly on the floor so that it will take only one blow to sever
them.”
* * * * *
As in kind of a trance I listened to Andrea while he talked in low
whispers, interrupting his utterances frequently by loud pounding
with his tools.
“So your Excellency is surprised? Ah! it was not so hard, not,
that is, after Trude at last got to us; Andrea had been suspicious
already. Graf Moritz wished to go to the Emperor with loud outcry. I
dissuaded. There was no water in that well. Did il Cardinale think
he could get away from Worms by such a shallow devise? Bah! did
not a man in our hire track him? But we could not follow always.
We must needs separate. Graf Moritz took the road to Giessen, I
found the Abbess of Quedlinburg leaving Worms, and needing a groom.
Very easy to win her service. Said I was a Norman pilgrim bound
for St. Sebald’s in Dantzic and working my way. She was pious and
unsuspecting. I have talked with Donna Ilsa. She is very brave,
worthy to be born in Siena. Yesterday I was sure il Cardinale was
going to Marburg; I told the abbess the roads were better this way.
The rest? Ecco! The moment your feet are free we escape across the
passage to Donna Ilsa’s room. It is not so high above the ground as
this. Easy to clamber down. Horses are below. Off for Giessen. A deed
worthy of Andrea!”
All this time I spoke never a word, but watched the doorway across
which Jan, as by a potent loadstone, was being slowly drawn. Trude
simpered and smirked, answered his clumsy compliments with broad
blushes, turned away her head when he beamed most tenderly; in short
no trout on the hook was ever played more skilfully than the unwary
Jan. His great bulk disappeared from the doorway. I could hear his
feet going haltingly down the hall towards a convenient window, where
his back would be toward the door, and he could lean delightfully
out the casement with a very pretty face near to his. Andrea, whose
red hair dye I was admiring vastly, and who looked a veritable
Norman, continued assiduously at his work and whispering, sometimes
straightening the offending clock-hand with resounding blows, until I
saw his whole form squirm like a cat’s. Jan was at the window.
“Now!” He turned like lightning. I stretched my feet, holding the
chain taut on the hard oak floor. A hatchet of notable edge and
temper flashed once, then descended. A blow worthy of a mastersmith!
The chain at my ankles sprang into two glittering fragments.
Bounding to his feet Andrea caught the ends of the chains and thrust
them in a twinkling into my shoes, then seized me by the shoulder
and without saying a word half led half carried me across the narrow
passage. Three long strides did it. By some occult power the door
opposite flew open. I saw a figure in black standing behind it. Into
the strange room,--and all I could see for an instant was a white,
white face shining out from under the black coif.
“Ilsa!” “Walter!” Andrea was bolting the door, while we sprang into
one another’s arms. Oh, that moment, that moment! Gladly would I have
paid for it with a captivity not of days, but of years!
Yet the period of our joy was one of a fleeting minute. Andrea was
far too devoted a rescuer to let his fair project fail through
overmuch lover’s ardor.
“Away! away! Eccellenza! Release him, Donna! Instants are precious.
Jan may discover at any time. The Conte must have his wrists free
in order to clamber down the vine trellis. There is much to do.” He
clapped his hand to his belt, then actually turned pale, “Diavolo!”
“What has happened?” cried Ilsa, first to win back her tongue.
“Call me the prince of fools!” raged Andrea. “I have left the pincers
wherewith to clear the Conte’s hands in the other room.”
“Cannot I get down without them?” I demanded; but a glance from the
window at a gnarled mass of vines that descended a sheer twenty feet
convinced me that while an active man could do the deed easily, it
were madness to try it manacled.
“I will lose no time,” proclaimed Andrea, unbolting again. “I go and
return in a trice; Trude can detain Jan a thousand years.”
Boldly enough he flung open the door, only to recoil in absolute
consternation. In our excitement and raptures we had heard no steps
without; we were face to face with no less a personage than her
Reverence the Abbess Theckla, and her companion nun, the dried old
Sister Hemma. What fiend had prompted them to visit Ilsa at this
instant, time lacked to discover. They crossed the threshold before
even Andrea recovered enough to close against them. Face to face we
all stood, while one could count a slow twenty, before they found
wits and we breath enough to speak a word. Then the abbess spoke,
shaking all over with struggling passions. “Holy Mother! What--what
is this!”
Moving by a kind of instinct I strode beside Ilsa. My hands were not
too bound to place them upon her shoulders.
“Reverend Mother,” spoke I tensely, “what you see is the Graf von
Regenstein and his affianced wife.”
But the horrified groan of the lady abbess was drowned by the scream
of Sister Hemma. With a shriek that might have stirred the dead she
flew out through the door, and instantly the inn resounded with her
howlings.
“The maniac! The maniac! He is loose! He is assaulting Sister Ilsa!”
Almost at her flying skirts went Andrea. “He saves himself!” were the
ungrateful words that came springing to my lips, when from the door
of my former prison room I saw him bounding back again. In the left
hand he grasped the pincers, in the right the huge partisan which in
his unlucky moment Jan had discarded. But Jan had roused and turned
like a startled wild boar. With a great roaring he made after Andrea,
but the Sienese with a flying leap was before him. We slammed our
door in Jan’s face, and bolted it, whilst he beat on it, cursed, and
yelled like a fiend.
In the inn below reigned indescribable confusion. “The maniac is
loose!” twenty were bawling, and we heard the trampling of feet.
Abbess Theckla made wild passes with her hands toward us. She would
have flown at my throat, had not her strength failed her. In the
tumult we could not follow her desperate reproaches. Andrea, whose
brain had never faltered, approached me.
“They will be forcing the door in a moment, Eccellenza. It will go
better if I release your hands.”
“You cannot save me,” I commanded; “save yourself. It can still be
done. Get to Giessen and Graf Moritz. Tell him the Cardinale di
Forli, passing as the Vicomte de Barras, has ridden in quest of
Luther to seize or slay him. Away instantly or Luther is lost!”
“It will be wiser to remain, and to save both the Conte and perhaps
Luther also,” observed Andrea imperturbably, at the word wrenching my
left wrist free; “now for the right.”
By this time there was a rush of feet in the passage, and a confused
shouting. A good dozen were without the door, and while it was
relatively solid and fitted with a heavy bolt, it was not proof
against well-used axes. I shook my right hand clear. The sense of
freedom sent the blood springing through my veins. Again I was
myself, my own master, and on my powers that day hung not my own life
only, but the life of Luther, and the hope and honor of the woman I
loved. Should I be caught here again like a caged rat, to be drowned
at the bidding of my captors? Not so! All my trust in God, all the
blood of the Regenstein ritters of old cried out against it. With
liberty so nigh, I could not dare to fail!
“Andrea,” I spoke, seizing the partisan he had so opportunely brought
us. “We must play fox and lion alike. You are the first. I will be
the second. Let us at least make our guests outside to hesitate. Ten
minutes may be worth ten thousand ducats.” Then I raised my voice,
“Ho! you without there. If there is any honest German present not in
foreign hire let him talk to me. I can prove readily enough that I am
not crazed. This Vicomte de Barras is no French cavalier. He is of
the spawn of Rome, a Pope’s legate, and he has ridden off to seize
Dr. Luther. You who love Dr. Luther stand back, and do not damn your
souls by helping his arch enemies.”
Whatever else my words accomplished they at least produced a
momentary lull in the beating upon the door. There was a jangle of
voices. I continued my admonishings, well knowing the prejudices of
the average German burgher folk against all Latins, crying out that
I was a Harzland nobleman carried off by the crows of Italy, and
promising great reward to whosoever would aid procuring my liberty
and saving Dr. Luther.
“Do not heed his ravings,” I heard a woman’s voice urging in very
broken German; “he is beside himself. Down with the door!”
The attack, however held back. I could hear angry arguments and
counter arguments. The hint about Luther had been enough to rob
Marianna’s commands of half their force. It was no light thing in
Marburg to be called the foe of the hero of Germany. After a space a
familiar voice spoke in Italian against the keyhole.
“Gualtiero.”
“I hear you.”
“Admit me.”
“Alone?”
“Yes. I would reason with you ere all is too late.”
“Very well,” I assented. Then I sent my voice out loudly, “The lady
is permitted to enter. The man who strives to thrust after her dies
instantly.”
I took station by the door so that any forbidden intruder might feel
the full weight of my partisan. Andrea opened a little. Marianna
entered. For the first time she and Ilsa were face to face.
The Italian wore a short red travelling skirt and a richly slashed
and embroidered bodice. Her dark hair was flying. Her eyes were
like coals. A thousand passions were struggling on her face. In
her belt was a long knife and a pair of the very small firelocks,
called pistols. Ilsa stood calmly before her in her trailing black,
a perfect antithesis: it was the meeting of southern heat and of
northern cold. The old abbess, utterly terrified at one horror after
another, clung desperately to one arm of her niece.
Andrea bolted again. Critical as our situation was, a grim sense of
humor seized me as I saw Marianna staring in wonderment upon the
silent nun.
“Madonna,” said I, with a manner of flourish, “you have the honor to
meet the most noble Lady Ilsa, soon to be Gräfin von Regenstein.”
If Marianna had been a Medusa she would have frozen us with her eyes.
Lightnings seemed to spring out of them. Without shame I confess to
wincing, but Ilsa regarded her as calmly as a rock. Marianna’s teeth
shone like those of a beautiful beast when she flung her questions at
the German, wholly ignoring my presence.
“So _this_ is the woman who has stolen him from me?”
“I have loved him,” was Ilsa’s steadfast answer.
“Madre di Jesu, you are a nun?”
“Yes,” came the wholly measured reply.
“And you dare to love him?”
“I do.”
“You, a nun, will even talk of marrying him?”
“I will.”
“Your vows? Pray when, gracious mistress, has His Holiness issued his
dispensation from them?”
“God, bearing his message through Dr. Luther, has loosed them.”
“A right approved and saintly deputy! Since when has this fine
assurance come?”
“Not ten moments since, when Walter took me in his arms.”
The word “Walter” made Marianna’s face ashen. I cannot describe her
glance of fury and incarnate hate.
“Prove then that you love him, you, _you_,--low, ignorant German
wench, with the face of a she-goat and the modesty of an ape. You
dare to set your love against mine--” But here Marianna’s German
ended. She dissolved in Roman curses, lost upon Ilsa. I moved as if
to end the fearful colloquy, then halted at a nod from Ilsa. Like a
silver bell sounded the Harzlander’s voice in answering.
“I have loved him enough to bury myself in the convent for his sake,
to save, as I dreamed, his soul. I love him enough now to defy the
world and marry him despite all scorn and hissing, for I know that
God is better pleased that an evil vow were broken than kept. Betwixt
you and me there has been a great battle for Walter’s soul. With all
your powers you have striven to drag him down to hell, and Satan
has been with you. You are beautiful enough to pluck to damnation a
saint. And I have striven against you as a weak, untaught mountain
girl with only her white conscience and her prayers to save him from
you; to save him and all his glorious gifts of heart and mind for the
works of heaven. And I have won--have won! The dross has been purged
out of him. On my side has been the dear Lord God, and He is stronger
than the Master Devil. Therefore do you, most fair and sinful lady,
leave us to live our lives, and may you repent in peace.”
“You have won him?” repeated Marianna, in a kind of wan agony, her
lips blanched and drawn.
“Even so.” Ilsa looked at me. I nodded. The face of the Italian
flushed crimson.
“Perdition! Am I not southern born? Can I stand here a smiling fool?
You have won him? _Evviva!_ Then let the bridegroom lead home his
bride. Ecco!--”
With the last word her hand flew to her belt, she drew a pistol and
fired; but with the flash I smote aside the barrel with the shaft of
my weapon. The ball found a victim, but not the one intended. With
a direful scream the old abbess released her niece’s arm and fell a
white heap upon the floor; across the smoke-filled room we stared at
one another horribly. Marianna dropped the empty pistol and stood
gazing for a moment in a stupor. Ilsa seemed unable to stir or
speak. Andrea cast himself upon the fallen woman, but rose, shaking
his head.
“The heart--_instantemente_,” was all he could articulate.
“Murderess,” I found power to cry, and was making to seize Marianna’s
other weapons, when an echoing shout without the door told how our
truce was at an end.
“There is murder within! Force open! Secure the mad man!”
“Down the trellis, Eccellenza, down the trellis, while I hold them
back,” Andrea pleaded. As he spoke, however, a rush of men swept the
door almost from its hinges.
“Impossible,” I retorted. “Can I leave _them_? This attack must be
checked until these men will listen to reason. The only chance!”
A second blow smote the door inward, wrenched clear of all
fastenings. Half a score of faces seemed crowding after it. Weapons
were tossing. Curses flying. But the strength of fifty seemed in my
arms that day. The great partisan danced over my head like a willow
wand as I swung it.
“Back, swine,” I thundered, “or be I mad or sane, I will brain you
all.”
Wherewith I drove the poleaxe on the shoulder of one hulking villain
of the Forli crew and sent him down with a mortal yell. Andrea had
snatched a chair and with a dexterous side blow felled a second less
fatally. They gave back a moment, gathered for a second rush, then
made it; with God’s help I met them.
Once an axe stroke missed my shoulder by a hair’s-breadth. Twice a
boar-spear was thrust into my face, and twice I swept it aside. The
mighty Jan was foremost in the attack; a great good fortune, for
his bulk clouded the whole door and forbade other attackers. He had
snatched a broadaxe somewhere and thrust forward recklessly. Once
driven from the narrow opening I was lost, but my assailants fought
with poor generalship. I held my own, and Andrea, whipping out a
murderous dirk, added shrewd blows beside mine.
Then as we fought, and as the inn resounded with the horrid cry, in a
dim way I knew that, though my eyes were ever to the front, there was
a strange combat waging behind me. Only later did I learn it all; yet
I could hear my assailants calling to one another as they peered past
me, “Holy Christ! The women! The women! The nun and the Italian.”
For what befell was this. Even as the door fell from its casement
Marianna had reached for her second pistol, but had never drawn it.
Around her wrist had gripped the hand of Ilsa, a clutch like steel.
Breast against breast, their hot breath smiting one another’s faces,
they had fought. Struggling, tearing, panting, till Ilsa’s black
serge flew in a myriad tatters; and still they waged their battle.
Once for a desperate instant they had paused, and Ilsa, in a kind
of irony, cried, “What will you?” To which Marianna shot across her
teeth, “If I die I will be buried, if I live, you will be.” And with
that resumed her battle.
Then at length, and I am glad I saw it not, though I glory in it all,
Harzland strength and German love triumphed over Italian storm and
hate. Marianna’s dagger sprang from the sheath, but it was Ilsa’s
hand that grasped it. The weapon went deep to another sheath--the
breast of Madonna di Forli. Again a cry, a shrill, long cry,
agonized, inarticulate. I turned my head. Beside the slain abbess I
saw lying the form of Marianna.
That lapse of mine was almost my undoing. I was carried backward by
a new onslaught led by Jan. He bounded into the room. In an instant
the rest would have followed; we would have been hewn in pieces
before any could hearken to a word; but even as I swung my partisan
and strove by one last effort to beat him down, Ilsa did one deed
more. I saw her bend and take from the lifeless grasp of Marianna
the second pistol, then straight over my shoulder she aimed it as
coolly as when she levelled on a Harzland doe. The black serge of
the sleeve swept against my cheek. Close to my ear went the rattle
of the wheel-lock. The thunder flash! Through the cloud of smoke I
saw the mighty Jan sinking to his knees. I ran to the door, my weapon
flashing terribly, and the rest cowered back like sheep.
“Enough of folly!” I trumpeted, and at length they heard me. “I
am not mad; but this Italian woman has murdered the Abbess of
Quedlinburg and striven to murder this nun. We fought only in defence
of our lives. I am a German nobleman, the free Graf von Regenstein,
and can prove my name and sanity to any magistrate. Now you who
love truth, justice, Germany, and Luther make ready swift horses
and escort, for this French Vicomte di Barras, who is in truth the
Cardinale di Forli, has ridden after Dr. Luther to seize him and burn
him at Rome.”
They heard me readily enough now. The fall of Jan had robbed them
of all stomach for fighting. The landlord of the inn came forward,
pitifully distressed at recent happenings under his roof, and anxious
at all costs to still the tumult. A grave Sir Councillor of the city
appeared, a man who had read all of Dr. Luther’s books and who loved
the Cause right well. My clothes hung about me in ribbons, my face
was bloody, I had a shrewd wound on the thigh; but I could still put
on dignity and talk as became the Lord of the Regenstein. In ten
minutes I had convinced these worthies that my tale rang true. In ten
minutes more they were ordering the fastest horses in Marburg under
saddle to speed us to Giessen, to join our other friends, and ride as
seldom men ride, to save the hero of Germany.
Only when all this was done could I turn back for words with Ilsa.
She had not left the room of battle. They had taken away Jan, still
alive, and with a passing chance to recover; but on the two beds lay
the silent forms which an hour before had been the abbess and the
Italian. Ilsa’s dress was tattered beyond telling. The black coif
and white veil had vanished. Over her head the short nun’s hair was
scattered in golden curls. As I came to her she cast herself into my
arms. There for a good moment she sobbed, and we had joy together. At
last she looked upon one of the beds.
“Was she indeed so evil?” she asked gently; “she was very beautiful.”
I could not but smile, though I fear not merrily.
“She was like all of us--all saving you,” I said; “full of evil, but
of much good also. She was from the South, and lived after the manner
of her people. Leave her judgment to God.”
“She loved you,” spoke Ilsa, in a whisper. “She truly loved you,
though her love was not pure. I will ever judge her kindly.”
Then I led her from the room, to the one where I had been prisoner,
that we might be away from fearful scenes.
“Ilsa,” I said, “I heard what you said to Marianna. Is it true? Will
you marry me?”
“Whenever you say, Walter.”
“Ilsa, the Cause will triumph. We will save Dr. Luther. There is yet
time. In days to come the convent doors will open. Many nuns will
go forth to the new Christian liberty. They will be happy wives and
mothers. Dare you be the first?”
“I dare.” Then with a toss of her head of elflocks, while her form
shook with great sobs, she asked amid a dreadful laughter, “Ach!
Wälterchen, do you not think I have been proved without vocation for
a nun _to-day_?”
“I think,” answered I, “a greater than Leo of Rome has this day
cancelled off your vow.” Then I continued, “Last night I seemed
hopelessly trapped. They held me utterly. My confidence broke down.
I reflected on how Luther was betrayed, the Cause doubtless ruined,
you doomed to a life of clouds and grief, and all in the end because
once I had welcomed the bad love of a sinful woman, and now even in
the days of repentance could not cast off the consequences thereof. I
felt almost as a new Judas, cursed on earth, and damned in hell. At
length I prayed, ‘Oh! Lord take away my life, nay, blot out my very
soul. Yet let me die as a man, not as a sheep; for the memory of the
ill which I have wrought will drive me mad through all eternity.’ And
now heaven has answered--this.” Whereat I kissed her.
After a little I drew her to the window, whence I had gazed as a
chained captive only two brief hours past. Before our eyes rose the
glorious mount of the castle, its slopes all clad in the young spring
green.
“Now,” I repeated aloud, “let not death, nor life, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, separate me from Ilsa,
my true wife, bestowed on me by the great love of God!”
CHAPTER XXXIV
THE DEED UNDER THE BEECHWOOD
It was six good leagues from Marburg to Giessen. We put our horses
at speed, but the afternoon was half sped when we clattered over the
stones of the little South Hessian city. We lost more precious time
in searching the inns for Moritz and for my own retainers, who had
wisely attached themselves to him. At last at the “Landgraf” we found
them. Time fails to relate all the laughter and greetings, and what I
said, and Moritz said, and Ilsa said, or how Adolf and Gunter almost
hugged me like bears when they fairly had me. Then when the raptures
had ended we held a hurried but sober council. Forli had nigh ten
hours the start of us, and I had not been able to overhear, in my
captivity, all the details of the route he intended to follow. The
only thing whereof we could be certain was that he was posting for
Eisenach, and that near that city Dr. Luther had intended to halt and
visit his kinsfolk. There seemed nothing for it save to spur after,
and to trust to such tidings as we could get along the way to guide
us more securely.
Then when this seemed settled Moritz and I both looked at one another
and spoke one word.
“Ilsa?” Manifestly it had been impossible to leave her amongst
strangers at Marburg, as manifestly it seemed impossible to leave
her alone at Giessen. I was even talking of seeking whether a local
nunnery could harbor her a few days, when Ilsa cut all knots for us.
“Dear brother, you know all that I am to Walter and what I wish to
do. Could I not ride with the best over the slopes of the Brocken?
Give me a horse. I will show myself your sister still. And then come
what may,” her hand stole into mine, “we shall always be together.”
Moritz pursed his lips and frowned, but ended with a laugh.
“Another horse,” he ordered. And then he looked at Ilsa’s clothes.
For though at Marburg we had called into requisition one of Sister
Hemma’s cloaks, a nun’s dress was a strange enough habit for a ride
like ours. But Ilsa’s face turned rosy red; a red that did me good,
her cheeks had been pale so long. “I will ride, brother. By the time
the horse is ready, I am ready also. Leave the rest to me and to
Andrea.” So we suffered her to quit us, being ourselves full of such
matters as sifting out the best of our men, providing weapons, and
looking to the saddlery.
At last, even as we ordered “One side-saddle” to the grooms, forth
to the courtyard to greet us came as pert and smiling a page-boy as
ever wore a red doublet, high black boots, or a rakish green cap and
feather, which sat delightfully upon a mass of waving golden hair.
How Andrea had found the costume, time lacked to inquire; but I was
long past wondering at his legerdemain. Moritz frowned again; but who
could deny her now? Lightly as a sprite she bounded to the saddle of
my tallest palfrey, and looked down on me, smiling radiantly.
“Do you wonder, Walter, why I am not lying pale with horror at this
day? Do not ask me! Do not ask me! I only know that I am like the
bird who has broken his cage and whose wings are catching the air. I
may have leisure for dread and trembling some time; to think of the
awful end of Aunt Theckla, and--that woman. But now I remember only
this. I have you, and I am free!”
Our chosen troop was at length mounted; Adolf, Gunter, Andrea,
two Blankenburgers, Ilsa, Moritz, and myself. I was the last to
swing into the saddle. I should have known that my wounded thigh
was paining me, but I never felt it. Out of the gray Ost-tor we
thundered. The good steeds under us had been chafing long. We felt
their lengthening gallops as they caught the road. For a long time
Ilsa and I flew on side by side through the soft air of the deepening
evening. We did not speak often. From time to time we talked with
our eyes, and a flash told all we would say. We whirled through the
little red-roofed Hessian villages, now down the winding river roads,
now under a steep where a black pinnacled castle cast over us its
jagged shadows. The blue smocked peasant girls stopped to marvel at
us, we flew so fast.
As we rode I fell to musing on how it was scarce four years since
that other early evening when I had rowed with Marianna upon the
yellow Tiber beneath the domes of Rome. Four years! Four centuries
seemed that hour away. As I looked on Ilsa and her tossing hair,
felt the great sword now at my side and thought on the manful task
ahead, I strove to go back to those other hours, the long dalliance
over Theocritus’s Idylls and Lorenzo’s love sonnets, the tinkling
lutes in the rose gardens, the rustle of fans and silk, the delicate
minstrelsy, the soft words and the sensuous glances. Vanished! All
vanished--to a past as dim as Egypt and her fabled kings! I knew now
I was a true son of the fighting North, whose music had been the
jangling ring mail and the snort of the speeding stallions. I felt
my breath come fiercely like the hard blasts of the Baltic wind, and
my blood was aglow as the blood of many a Regenstein had glowed when
they spurred on the hostile hundreds. I had found my bride. Yes! And
I had found my true faith in God and in myself. Wherefore should I
not rejoice in life’s fair span?
“Walter,” spoke Ilsa, riding very close, “wherefore is your face so
set and stern?”
“Is it?” was my reply. “Then I was thinking of Dr. Luther and his
peril.”
“We will save him! We will save him!” she kept repeating. “The dear
God has been with us this day. After the rest--how can we fail?”
So onward we swept, till the night closed down, till the stars shone
clear above us, and a young moon made the track of the road just
visible. The horses grew weary at last, but we pressed them, hoping
to make our relay by midnight. Once we were halted at a forking of
the way till Gunter found a cabin and a grumbling peasant. I knew
that Ilsa’s head was hanging heavily long before we saw the great
towers of Fulda traced against the violet-black sky. The gates of the
town were already closed, but Adolf knew of a kind of inn outside the
walls, and hither we turned, just after the great abbey clock within
the ramparts sent twelve strokes pealing into the silent night.
Much ado we had to rouse host or horseboys. However, at last
convinced we were no bandits, there was a racing with lanterns and
unbarring of doors, and we clattered into the courtyard.
“Eight horses in two hours, mine host,” was Moritz’s order, banging
his sword as he spoke it; “and the fiends to pay if they are not
fresh or are late.”
“Your Lordship commands the impossible,” was the deprecating answer.
“It is scarce two hours since a great French gentleman rode away with
our best, and his own beasts had been ridden from Marburg.”
“From Marburg? And when did he set forth?”
“Why, one of his grooms swore he had started at dawn, but near
Ehringhaus his Lordship’s saddle-girth parted, so that he had a
pretty fall, being a gentleman of weight, and they had much delay ere
they could ride again. His Lordship was cursing like the Grand Turk’s
janizaries all the time he tarried here, although whether from pain
or at the delay I know not. I have none of his language.”
We all breathed easier. Again heaven had prospered us. I fear I had
no great grief at the posterior pangs of his Eminenza di Forli. We
had made up most of the chase, but to wait till dawn while our own
horses were resting was impossible. We argued long with the landlord.
Money and threats could not move him. “I have no horses,” was all his
answer. Moritz was desperate, but I knew one last arrow.
“Master Host,” spoke I, after sullen argument, “will you still say
‘no horses’ when I say that saying that means a heretic’s death for
Dr. Luther?”
“Ei! Dr. Luther?” and instantly he blew another tune. So I told him
for what wagers we were casting, and in a twinkling all was changed.
“Dr. Luther to the stake? Oh! the glozing papist dogs! Horses you
shall have, though I pillage every stable in Fulda.”
So we waited, while many lights were lit, and men ran in and men ran
out. I cannot tell just how mine host made the city gates unlock, and
gaping grooms lead forth fresh palfreys; all that I left to Moritz.
For myself I stood guard, hand on hilt, while Ilsa lay snug and warm
on a great straw stack in one corner of the inn yard, hid from any
ken save mine and that of the friendly moon. She had fallen asleep
the instant she had touched her rude pillow. Pacing sentry before
her couch I felt even as a would-be knight, keeping his vigil around
the high altar all the dark hours before his accolade. I almost
grudged the promptness wherewith the new horses were gathered. Once
or twice I cast my eyes on her, a dark heap upon the yellow pile,
then withdrew my sight as from a dazzling mystery whereof I was not
worthy. And ever I kept repeating, “God is with us. God is with us.”
Two hours at least she slept, before Moritz’s call summoned “All is
ready!”
I stepped across, and with infinite reluctance touched her hand. “We
must be riding, Ilsa,” spoke I, as with a little sigh she turned and
rubbed her eyes.
“Oh! blessed waking,” was her first cry. “I dreamed I was again in
the convent, and Aunt Theckla had ordered me to lie all night on the
chapel stones spread out like a cross. Can I ever forget!--”
“I will aid you,” I said, my arm under her.
Her step was not so blithesome as when she mounted at Giessen, but
she carried herself bravely. Moritz thanked and compounded with our
zealous host. We rode out into the black night again. The inn lights
were engulfed behind us. Then with only the stars and the sentinel
arms of the great trees to point our pathway, we gave our new horses
the spur, and once more for a long time Ilsa and I rode silently,
side by side.
It was a magic night. The touch of the spring was all in the air.
The very ground was soft and spongy under the flying hoofs. In our
nostrils blew the delicious odor of green things growing. Sometimes
we were whirled by great black farmsteads where wakeful cocks crowed
as we passed, and sleepy dogs arose to bark fitfully as our hoof
beats died in the distance. Sometimes we saw the dim glint of the
hurrying streams, and our horses plashed with cool strides across the
unseen pebbles of the fords. Insensibly we knew the paths led upward,
height succeeded height, we were skirting rolling hills which lifted
spiked summits of trees against the faintly traced skyline. I knew we
were entering the famous Thüringer Wald, the mighty forest land which
rolled away, westward and northward, until it merged into our own
wilder Harz.
Mentally I counted the leagues as we told them off. Four hours’
start Forli had possessed; but one great thing was in our favor. Dr.
Luther at least would not travel by night, and the Cardinal would
hardly be mad enough to attack him in his lodgings; rather, fearing
no pursuit, he would follow at safe distance until the Wittenberger’s
little company was on a solitary road, ere speeding his foul arrow.
I knew the chances were still even as to ultimate failure; that any
mistake in the road, any least delay, would ruin all; but after the
deeds of the past day I could misdoubt nothing. Every creaking tree,
every chattering brook, spoke the same words, “God is with us! God is
with us!”
At length as we rode with our faces towards the East, we saw the
first bright bars that tell of day. Touched by the red enchanter,
rocks, streams, woods, and uplands were leaping out into glorious
being. The horses themselves found again their speed and carried
us swiftly forward. And with the young dawn full on her face, Ilsa
turned to me and spoke, “Dear Walter, do you believe in omens?”
“Just now I believe in them implicitly.”
“And so do I. We have ridden out of the darkness into the light. We
will ride in it hand in hand forever.”
Our horses kept pace as we flew on together. If Moritz saw me riding
with Ilsa’s hand in mine, no protest came from him, dear fellow; and
so we sped out of the Maytime twilight into the Maytime morning. From
overhead, all out of sight, came the song of the soaring lark, closer
down, so that the soft leaves whipped in our faces, was the whisper
of the uncounted beeches. Weary as we were with the sleepless night
in the saddle, the morning air came to us like wine.
“God is with us! We will save Luther!” so we called to one another,
and mounted another steep.
The sun had fairly given us the new day when we whirled into the one
long wandering street of Liebenstein, nestling between its guardian
hills and beside a clear-flowing little river. We felt not need of
food, nor drink, nor rest; but for the sake of the horses we were
fain to halt for a little baiting and to ask a few questions.
“Had a party of riders passed before us through the village?”
The brawny hostler nodded. They had spoiled his sleep a good three
hours before. Eight to ten men, well mounted and armed, and seemingly
hot on the road to Ruhla where the Eisenach highway came in from the
west.
“Is Dr. Luther in Eisenach?” demanded I with a quickness that made
the fellow start.
“Why, yes, your Lordship; that is, he was reported as spending the
day there with his kinsfolk, and about to set forth this morning for
his former journey homeward.”
“Hark you, my man,” I asked, not mincing further words. “Are you his
foe or friend? Do you love Germany or Italy the best? If Luther and
Germany, give us a guide. It is his life or death we ride for.”
“Luther and Germany? _Donnerwetter!_ what may I do for _him_!” He
spoke it out in a kind of wrath at seeming to be doubted.
So again we had a friend, and were off again, only waiting long
enough for Humfried, a very zealous and honest fellow, to clap a
saddle on an ungainly but fairly swift pad, and ride himself to guide
us. The chase was ending at last in very truth, though only heaven
knew the fortune of our hunting. Humfried could tell with a certainty
the glade where the Ruhla road crossed the main highway from
Eisenach, and here, unless all calculations failed, we would find
the Cardinal in ambush for his prey. But would we be in time? I knew
Luther’s habits well; how sometimes he set forth before cockcrow.
Once or twice even my warm hopes would falter, and a shadow of fear
would cross my mind. To come so close? to fail? Ah, Heaven which had
done so much, had not that bitter cup in store!
But whenever I doubted I was reassured by the flashing light in my
Lady’s eyes, and she spoke the word that had cheered us all the way.
“God is with us!” And I only answered, “Even so--yet faster!”
Onward and onward, with a view now of Schloss Altenstein upon a
distant crest; now ever mounting the hillocks; now flying with
deadened hoof beats under venerable pines across their carpets of
needles; now into the clear sunshine of green meadows; now again
under the shimmering green and gold of the kingly beeches. Suddenly
Humfried, who rode at our head, held up a warning hand and drew rein.
“Softly. Here is the glade,” he enjoined. Our horses fell to a walk.
We crossed a swift little brook, and mounted slowly a steep slope.
Before us opened a wide green lane, closed in on either side by the
dense forest. There we halted. For a moment our senses caught nothing
more noxious than the purling of the brook and the rustling of the
trees, but Gunter (sly forester) pointed down. The fresh tracks of
many horses were on the clean sod beside the way. Dismounting and
nosing around like a fox he quickly made plain whither the party had
turned aside into the greenwood. Humfried confirmed his judgment.
Manifestly Forli (who doubtless had with him some rascal who knew the
country well) had withdrawn into the dense covert overlooking the
angle of the Eisenach and Ruhla roads, whence any traveller upon the
former was at his mercy. Our task was exceeding plain.
“Ah! Wälterchen, must it be again--these?” asked Ilsa, for the first
time on the ride a little pale, when she saw me look to the charges
of my pistols after we dismounted.
“Would that I could pleasure you,” I replied, with a shake of the
head. “It is men’s work now, and not woman’s; but pray God it is soon
over. There will be no blood if I can spare it; yet what must be,
must.”
She was hardly pleased, but refused to abide with the horses, which
we tethered a little back of the way. I ordered her, however, to
walk the last, and she obeyed reluctantly, the more reluctantly as I
strode first, beside the guiding Humfried. With every man’s weapon
at hand, we forced through the underbrush. Luckily the ground was
soft with rain. The fresh young twigs bent noiselessly. We attacked
a party equal or superior to ourselves, but in that moment we would
have gone against forty with full confidence. Suddenly we halted by
a friendly thicket. Before us opened a little plat of greensward.
Horses were tethered beside it. To the left the bushes sprang apart
a little, giving a fair view of the Eisenach road. Here seated
carelessly on the grass, was a villainously bearded sentry with one
eye upon the highway, the other upon some pleasant pottage that was
cooking in an iron pot over a snapping fire of sticks. The rest of
Forli’s party lolled in easy attitudes around the blaze. His Eminence
himself, rosy and portly, a trifle heavy-eyed perhaps from hard
riding, but seemingly having borne his galloping exceedingly well,
sat a little apart, propped up against a saddle, while before him
with numerous airy gestures squatted the estimable Ettore Orosi,
talking a voluble stream of Tuscan.
“I do assure you, Eminenza, by my honor as a Christian and Catholic
bravo”--so I caught the clapper of his tongue going--“that it was
only the malific evil eye which that most damnable heretic cast over
me, which thwarted my most admirably conceived attempt upon him at
Worms; but that attack you will graciously recall, was made in the
night time; while the learned and ingenious virtuoso Giuseppe Salvali
of Bergamo assures us that wizards, though most potent under stars
and moon, are correspondingly feeble in clear sunlight.”
“_Si_,” assented the Cardinal dryly, “no doubt the valor of Signor
Orosi is improved by a bright morning and plenty of armed friends. Ho
there, fellow! Does a wagon seem to be coming down the road?”
“Not a crow or hare is in sight,” answered the sentry.
“Well said, unless your worthy watchman will deign to look the other
way,” spoke I in Italian, emerging from the thicket as unwarned as a
ghost. Forli leaped to his feet as men rise from adders’ nests. His
eight gallows-birds clutched for their weapons, but I seemed utterly
unconcerned. In my right hand I held only my blue riding cap.
“A fair morning, your Christian Eminence,” I continued, shaking out
my cloak with deliberation, while Forli for once looked abject and
aghast. “And may I ask for what noble enterprise the Pope’s Legate
watches the roads like a bandit in this our poor northern Thuringian
country?”
“How in the name of all fiends!--How, save by Ganymede’s eagle, came
you here?” at length articulated the Cardinal, not forgetting his
classics even in this crisis.
“How? Why Dædalus made me a pair of wings, to be sure. I am certain
your taste will approve the allusion.” Over my shoulder I could see
my friends silently spreading themselves in the thicket, while all
of Forli’s startled men crowded up behind their master, their group
absolutely at the mercy of our levelled tubes.
“Has Marianna--?” began the Cardinal at length; “have you glozened
her into releasing you? Oh! folly of womanhood, rightly says
Juvenal--”
“Blame her not,” I commanded abruptly; “enough that I am here sorely
against her wish, could she but know it. It was not _she_ that
released me.”
“Who, then? The Emperor? Even he thought we went to France. He knew
nothing of this.”
“A greater than Carolus Quintus, Eminenza.”
“You are jesting. Who released and sent you?”
“A certain high personage, yet one much despised in Rome, and whose
pleasure has been little studied by your Eminence.”
“An end to riddles. Explain.”
“I will name him in German, for it is here men seem most to honor
Him, _der liebe Gott_!”
“_Gott?_--_Dio?_--Chatter of no miracles, Gualtiero. Why are your
eyes so terrible?”
“Because, Eminenza, we should cast aside our dominoes, and call the
mask at an end. You seized my person foully, designing to hale me
back to Italian bondage. You cozened the Emperor into consenting to
your deed. You went a step further, and contrary to his known wishes,
you would now seize the very deputy of heaven, Dr. Luther, in face
of the safe-conduct. Let us understand one another. I am free, and
go not to Italy. Your further plot is doomed to completer failure.
Either bid your men to submit here and now as prisoners and yield
your own person, or by the Power that brought me liberty at Marburg,
you go to the prison house whence none go forth.”
The Cardinal looked at me stupidly, his ears refusing to accept my
utterance.
“I? Papal and Apostolic Legate? Surrender myself a prisoner?”
“Do not hesitate,” I commanded; “I use no child’s words.”
Heaven knows whether he saw my party in the covert, and whether he
would have yielded or fought; but at this instant I beheld Orosi,
just behind his master, doubling like a cat and pulling a crooked
and wicked blade. One instant more and Ilsa were widowed before her
bridal.
“Fire!” I cried.
The thicket around burst into the death flame. The great charge from
Gunter’s bell-mouthed arquebuse sang past me. Mercy we had shown
that midnight in the garden at Worms, but the blast was pitiless now.
Huddled together, Forli’s men fell like grass under the sickle, those
unhit tumbling in sheer fright. Orosi had bounded half of the way
toward me before a ball caught him in the groin. He fell right at my
feet, waving his sinful weapon, and struggling desperately to reach
me yet. But before I could draw to despatch him, Andrea had leaped
past me with his own stiletto.
“Mine, Eccellenza,” rang his call; “such carrion is not for the sword
of a cavaliere.”
The two grappled fiendishly. For a moment I feared Andrea had met
his match, but right speedily I saw the Sienese writhe to the top,
bend back the other’s right wrist, and send his own weapon home to
the fifth rib. A mingled curse and howl, and Ettore Orosi was forever
saved from the hangman.
“Bah,” spoke Andrea, rising and coolly wiping his knife. “And he
called himself a man of _virtù_!”
I, however, had Ilsa beside me now. She was white enough and all
of a-tremble, nor could I convince her at once that I was totally
unscathed. Our men were seizing such of the enemy as still survived,
and pinioning their arms. They were too scared for either resistance
or flight. Both of the other Italians who followed the Cardinal had
caught the full discharge and would never need a dungeon.
Moritz had run at once to Forli. It had been impossible to spare
him from the volley. A large ball had torn through his lungs. He
was spitting blood upon his rich doublet as we raised him. Adolf,
experienced in war surgery, gave him one glance.
“How long?” questioned Moritz.
“He will last an hour, hardly more,” spoke the veteran as
complacently as though passing judgment on a speared stag. Yet
Forli’s eyes opened at the words, and from him came a dreadful cry.
“One hour! One hour! Oh! to die now, here, thus! Where is the priest?
The confession? There is no absolution, no viaticum; I am damned
forever. The devils will have my soul.”
“Calm yourself,” I enjoined, contempt struggling with my pity;
“recall your vaunted philosophy. How often you have praised Lucretius
and Epicurus, and their disbelief in immortality. If you cannot die
as a good Christian, die at least as a good pagan, and die as a brave
man.”
But the Cardinal only raved the worse. “No viaticum. My life has been
one vast lie. I have held the honors of the Church and lived the life
of a Turk. Ah! Marianna’s mother--how I treated her! Years ago--I see
it as yesterday. I was in all Pope Alexander’s plots. I have feared
neither God nor devil. Now--”
More blood rushed to his lips, and for a moment he ceased moaning.
“It is possible to fetch a priest from Ruhla,” I remarked, melting
fast, but Forli raged on again.
“No! no! I’ll have none of your pattering country parsons. What is
their viaticum worth? ‘Absolvo’--a fool can say it. I’ll not believe
it though spoken by Leo de’ Medici. Who is the Pope but the Master
Rogue of all? If there’s a just God, he’ll damn me for all the
absolutions and benedictions in Christendom. Oh! God, God!”
He was passing to awful blasphemies, when straight past me moved
Ilsa, and I beheld her kneel by the stricken man, put her pure, soft
hands against that coarse, sensual face, and under her touch for a
moment he lay still, gazing with his dying eyes up into hers.
“Pray,” she commanded in the slow Latin she had learned at the
convent, “pray to the Lord Christ; without priest or masses, even now
He can forgive.”
Wonderingly he looked at her.
“Who are you?” he asked; “are you one of Fra Angelico’s seraphs
winged down from heaven?”
“I am a simple German maiden to whom God has been exceeding kind.”
How their dialogue might have ended I know not, for Adolf plucked me
by the sleeve.
“Countly Grace, a wagon is coming down the road from Eisenach.”
We left Ilsa still kneeling by our victim. Our men ranged themselves
behind the great beeches along the way. Moritz and I exchanged
assuring glances. Long since on the ride we had resolved what
disposition to make of Dr. Luther if once Forli’s band were happily
settled. In the midst of our scene of tragedy, not ended yet, must
come the brighter dash of comedy. The wagon, the familiar vehicle I
had followed all the miles from Wittenberg, was nearing rapidly, only
the Imperial herald no longer rode before. As it approached I could
see the occupants; the driver, the friar Johannes, honest Amsdorf,
and, joy of joys, my dear master. Unsuspectingly it rattled onward.
At a slight rising the stout horses fell to a walk. I gave a whistle.
Instantly two of our varlets were at the heads of the team. I sprang
from the covert with my sword flourished high.
“Stand all of you. Submit quietly. We seek only Dr. Luther.”
Adolf levelled an empty pistol at the driver’s breast. Gunter whipped
out an oath worthy of a corsair. The unvalorous friar Johannes
clapped his hands to his head and leaped down, bellowing mightily.
Amsdorf, of nobler metal, was reaching for a knife, when my voice
made him look on me twice, and despite my shaven face he knew me. Dr.
Luther, who at the first onset had turned a little pale and clasped
his hands, now flushed with a great light springing out of his eyes.
In a low voice I spoke to them.
“Dear friends, you know I love you and the Cause right well,
therefore fear nothing. But Dr. Luther must now come with me
instantly, and do you, Magister Amsdorf, swear to all the world that
you know not whether friends or foemen took him, nor whither they
vanished.”
I seized Dr. Luther with some show of roughness and forced him out
of the wagon. Johanne was already running up the Ruhla road, crying
“help!” and “murder!” We let him flee. He would not reach a house,
Humfried said, within a league. We thrust back Amsdorf into the
vehicle, and Gunter, with more sly curses, bade the driver “lash
his beasts as if the devil were after him, and never look around
save as he wished to be chased by a bullet.” The frightened fellow
obeyed instantly. The wagon was soon following the friar at full
speed. Still, with mock roughness, we hustled Dr. Luther back into
the covert of the beechwood, and then once face to face, with no part
to play, I fell into his arms, nor do I shame to own to manly tears
wherewith his also mingled.
“O gracious Heaven!” he cried when he could pass to words. “Oh joy,
oh joy! I was sure the black dogs of Rome had devoured you in Worms,
and I should meet you only in the Golden City. And you are here. You
are here.”
“Here, dearest master,” spoke I, “and Providence has been good to
me, for I have saved you.” Yet even in my delight I could not forget
him who lay dying. In a few words I told how we had sore need of a
priest. Quickly as I could I led him, still trembling with his joy,
backward to where lay the Cardinal, under an imperial beech tree,
with his sinful head on Ilsa’s lap.
“A priest,” I announced simply, for the pallor on the wounded man’s
face told how time was pressing, and Forli looked up at us with dim,
wistful eyes, inviting the other, yet dreading.
“Who is this man, a great noble?” asked Luther with a glance at the
rich dress.
“Dear Doctor,” I said, “you are to hear the confession of Giovanni
Paratini, called Cardinale di Forli, _legatus a latere_ from the
Holy See, who half an hour since lay ambushed here, to hurry you a
prisoner to Rome. God adjudged otherwise.”
“Who is this stranger?” cried Forli with a fearful gleam of
intelligence.
“Your Eminence has asked for a priest. I bring him the fairest
pardoner in the world--Dr. Martin Luther.”
A great shudder passed through the Cardinal’s frame; he raised his
head from Ilsa’s lap.
“Oh! blessed Mother of God,” he cried, “have you no mercy? Am I
not to be damned for enough sins without having your curses added?
I sought your liberty and life. They have taken mine. Is not the
reckoning washed clean? Spare me--spare--”
But here, with a tenderness infinite, Dr. Luther had dropped by the
side of the dying. Gently as had Ilsa, he took the Italian’s hands in
his own. And I thought as I stood gazing that Forli was happy even
among dying sinners, soothed as he was by the noblest man and the
noblest woman on God’s wide earth.
“To curse you, dearest brother? And wherefore should I curse?
Are you not one of Christ’s sheep, and had He pity for only the
ninety-and-nine who never went astray? And shall I, the servant, keep
my wrath when forgiveness is proffered by the Master-shepherd?”
“Poetry; you are speaking of dreams,” cried the Cardinal, “hate has
been hate, and vengeance vengeance since the world was. I care not
what the Church says. Oh! my sins, my sins.”
Dr. Luther raised his hand, entreating. “Withdraw all of you, all
but the lady (he did not know Ilsa’s name as yet). Our Lord has said,
‘this kind came not out save by prayer.’”
So we removed apart, every man bent on his own thoughts, until the
pardoner spoke softly. “Return. The end is near.”
Forli’s head still lay on Ilsa’s lap, but in his dim eyes there was
now a little token of peace. He looked at me, as if trying to form
a question, but strength was failing for utterance. Luther made the
words for him.
“He is seeking to know whether you forgive him also?”
“Cardinale di Forli,” said I, “for whatsoever thing wherein you have
wronged me I forgive you every whit. May God show unto you all the
pity and love He has revealed to me.”
A faint smile passed across the Italian’s face.
“It has all seemed a beautiful tale, a Platonic myth, this
forgiveness of enemies. Yet, yet--” his words came in faint whispers,
“if you and you can forgive, perchance God can do even likewise. It
is all very strange. Tell Marianna so, and tell Leo de’ Medici we at
Rome were wrong--”
No more. The blood rushed from his lips. His head fell back with the
death pallor spreading on his face.
“_Requiescat in pace_,” spoke Luther solemnly. “The mercy of the Lord
is from everlasting unto everlasting.”
Ilsa rose from the ground, while her brother cast a cloak over the
form of him who had been a Prince of the Roman Church, the keenest
critic of art and poetry in all the Eternal City, skilled in
diplomacy, wise in counsel, the first pupil of Alexander Borgia.
“Who is this lady, so strangely dressed?” asked Luther, setting his
gaze on Ilsa, and for the first time I knew that he had never met her.
“Dear Doctor,” I said, “this is the Gräfin Ilsa von Blankenburg, full
soon to be my wife.”
Ilsa colored scarlet for the first time, at thought of her manly
dress, but little enough recked Luther. With a great stride he went
up to her, with never a “by-your-leave” he held her glowing face
close to his and kissed her forehead.
“Dearest daughter,” he said, “I have remembered you in my prayers now
morning and night these many months, ever since Walter brought me his
burden touching you. I am taught again that God is stronger than the
devil.”
He released Ilsa, and for a moment she tried to follow as we turned
back to the horses; but in a moment I saw her color all fade to snow
and like a crushed lily she was falling when I caught her in my arms.
We laid her on the grass, and for a little I feared she was even as
Forli; though brook water splashed on her face made her eyes open,
and my first terrors end, her state, was very plain,--battling for
life the day before, in the saddle all night save two hours rest on a
strawrick, and now the dread scenes of this morning,--even we strong
men knew we would be unstrung and lame for many a day. With my own
arms I carried her, despite my limping thigh, to my horse and bore
her before me in the saddle. Adolf protested he was stronger and far
less wearied than I, but with such a burden, I could have played the
Titan.
We laid the body of Forli across one of the captured horses, rough
graves had been digged for the slain, the prisoners were duly
strapped to our varlets’ saddle bows; a smart run we would give them
ere they were lodged in some fit dungeon.
“Will not Forli be traced, and you be called in question?” asked
Luther as we moved away.
“He has gone to France in the interests of peace,” I replied sagely;
“it will be a long time before our friends at Rome pry too carefully
into the precise place and circumstances of his vanishing. It would
shatter too great a wasp’s nest. Doubtless we will hear that he died
of disease in some obscure inn on the Paris road.”
So we left the glade with its triumph and tragedy. Humfried guided us
by secret ways, up and down paths among the black beech stumps, until
my own senses were mystified as to our route, only I saw by the sun
that we were working steadily northward. Often we traced the edge of
low precipices where unsteady horses would have fallen, and I would
clutch Ilsa to my bosom fast; but little by little we came again
out of the enshadowing greenwood, until at last down a wide natural
avenue in the trees we beheld a wide patch of blue sky, and rising
against it a lordly hill crowned by a lordlier citadel.
“The Kaiser Schloss,” announced Humfried, pointing; “the Wartburg.”
“And here,” added Moritz, “my good kinsman the Castellan for the
Elector of Saxony will give Dr. Luther safe refuge until the present
storms are passed.”
We galloped down the slope, and again by leaf-hidden ways ascended
the steep, till the shadow of the great square tower of the Schloss
was cast far over us. Then armed sentries challenged, the portcullis
rose with chains loud rattling, and I saw the stalwart form of the
commandant striding down to the gate house from the keep. Of a sudden
I knew that I also was utterly spent and fainting, almost as was
Ilsa. I was painfully wounded. I had slept little for many nights,
I had been stretched for as many days on the rack of mental and
spiritual agony. Dimness swam before my eyes. “Saved!” I urged upon
myself, “saved! what folly to fail now.”
I remember giving Ilsa into the hands of her aunt, and away they took
her amid a great flurry of women. Von Steinitz and his officers were
standing by and pelting us with questions. Then even as I strove to
dismount a wide black void seemed to spring up to enfold me. I was
not conscious for many days.
CHAPTER XXXV
THE BRIDE OF WARTBURG
“‘For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers
appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and
the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.’” So sounded the
voice of Dr. Luther at my bedside, the first day I had strength and
consciousness to see him. I marvelled at his dress. He had thrown off
the monkish cowl, and wore a tight-fitting brown doublet and hose,
the true garb of a knight. At his belt was a small dagger. On his
cheeks was a ten days’ growth of beard.
“Ah, dear Doctor,” said I, “how do I behold you? You will soon pass
for a very lanz-necht.”
“‘Doctor?’” spoke he, smiling, “none of that. Junker Georg they are
all calling me, and tell me I am a ‘knight prisoner.’ They have given
me a noble chamber, where I can sit aloft in the region of the birds,
and they say to me ‘_nolens volens_ I must do this or do that.’ But,
thank heaven, they have not taken away from me ink and paper. Von
Steinitz and his lieutenant, Von Berlepsch, are exceeding kind, and
tell me after a little I will be suffered to ride out with a servant,
and to enjoy the good green world. In the meantime if you are well, I
am well, and, for that Christ be praised!”
So we talked together until Ilsa came in, with the roses again in her
cheeks, and sent my master away, telling him I must not be wearied
with talking longer.
Pleasant always has been to me the Maytime, whether in southland
or northland, but never fairer than then, in those sweet days of
gold, when strength and clear mind were returning day by day. Every
morning our walk from the castle grew longer, as Ilsa and I sought
out some flowery mead beside the singing brooks, and like children
made ourselves flower crowns, and flower chains, and chattered of how
we would play the King and Queen in the Regenstein, and rule with a
loving tyranny over all our vassals. Von Steinitz had pulled at his
beard a long time when I came, with Moritz at my side, to ask for a
speedy wedding, even at the Wartburg, with Ilsa.
“Pardon my slow wits,” he had protested, “it is no light thing to
talk of bridal with a nun, even though this old world changes fast.”
Perhaps it was the tidings that had drifted into the Wartburg only
the night before, how the French Ambassador had quitted the Emperor
with threats of instant war from his sovereign, that sent down
the scale in our favor. It was like enough his Imperial Majesty
would have plenty on his hands besides chasing Saxon heretics and
enforcing vows of celibacy. In any case our petition prevailed.
“_Donnerwetter!_ Let them marry!” had been the decision, and although
his good Freifrau made difficulties, these were mostly over the
shortness of the time for preparing. “No great linen chest! No great
assemblage of guests! When had a daughter of the family been married
like a miller’s lass?” At which Ilsa had only laughed like rippling
water, and vowed she was ready that selfsame day--yes! though she
wore the clothes wherewith she had ridden from Giessen, an assertion
at which her aunt dissolved in horror, redoubled when I vowed I was
right willing to take Ilsa home that moment without more costly dowry.
* * * * *
On the afternoon before the day set for the wedding Ilsa escaped
from the clutches of the Freifrau and all her frantically busy
women. She wandered forth with me, and we went hand in hand down the
slopes of the fortress mountain, scaring a deer among the saplings,
following along a grassy glade and stream which the castle folk
called the Annathal, till we must needs thread the sinuous, rocky
ravine of the Dragon’s Dale, thrusting our way through the moss and
ferns and harebells, whilst under our feet ran the glistering, cool
water. Beyond the ravine we clambered up the hillside to a little
eminence justly named the Violet’s Mount, and there we sat long and
happily in the grass, whilst Ilsa made fragrant wreaths for both.
After we had talked long of a thousand things I said to her:--
“It was on a day like this, and almost a place like this, I found you
first in the forest. Do you remember?”
“To the end of time.”
“I heard you singing before I saw you. I have often wondered what
were the words of that song. Do you remember them also?”
“Yes.” But she had turned red.
“A fitting spot! Give me the song again.”
“Not now, Wälterchen, not now. Although I own the place is
appropriate, for it was Walter von der Vogelweide’s song, and his
home was at the Wartburg.”
But I insisted, and whilst I watched with dozing contentment from the
grass, Ilsa lifted her golden head and sang in her sweet clear German
the old song of the Minnesinger.
“Under the linden
Out in the heathland,
Where we so gayly played,
There will I find him:
Soon we’ll together
Sit in bright flowers arrayed,--Whilst
from out the wooded vale.
Tan-dara-dei!--
So’ll sing the nightingale.
“In the green meadow
There ’tis I found him,
How my love greets me there!
Gladdest of women
Who is more blessed,
For _he_ has found me fair?
Kisses?--A thousand blow,
Tan-dara-dei!--
How red my mouth must glow!
“How I am cherished
Only one knoweth.
(Hide it, dear God, my bliss!)
How he caresses,
No one, aye, no one
Save _he_ and I see this.
None,--save for a little bird.
Tan-dara-dei!--
Keep still of what you’ve heard!”
“Tan-dara-dei!” The word came as an echo over our heads. We both rose
very suddenly. Behind us was standing “Junker Georg,” very august and
knightly indeed, in his ritter’s dress and beard; we stood looking
one to the other sheepishly for a little, while his honest sides
shook with laughter.
“Oh, my dear children!” said he at last, “if heaven would only teach
the Emperor and the Pope the joy which even they might win from an
innocent song and a wreath of wood violets, how happy this beautiful
world would be.”
And with that he moved away, shaking his head when I begged him to
tarry, though I vowed to Ilsa, who had never heard him sing, he had
a voice full worthy to join with hers. There were long shadows over
the mountains when we reëntered the castle. The Freifrau was angry
with her niece “flying abroad when this was the last chance for
fitting her velvet gown, as if there would not be time enough for
cozening after the wedding--that is, if you two fools are still of a
mind for it.” As for Dr. Luther, he was in better spirits than ever.
“His Grace the Elector is very kind. He consents to my remaining hid
at the Wartburg until all peril is passed. But he is a better friend
still; Spalatin will send me the books. Even here I can shoot my
bullets at my friends of the Curia, and, Deo volente, I will give
them one great culverin shot that will gall them shrewdly.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I will put the Bible in German, to be sure, so that the veriest
ploughboy in the land will stand in no need of Latin or priestcraft
to find the way to his loving Father.”
So I knew that even in his hiding, my master would speak for the
Cause more eloquently than with a thousand sermons at Wittenberg....
The next day we were married. Freifrau von Steinitz vowed the
simplicity of the festival was scandalous; but she was a woman of
potent resources, and there were enough officers and their dames at
the Wartburg to give us all the pomp and ceremonial right-minded
lovers could wish. Under the rainbow lights streaming through the
colored windows of the chapel, the very chapel where St. Elizabeth
of Hungary knelt for worship, we knelt together, Ilsa and I, and Dr.
Luther (so again for the nonce we called him) joined us as man and
wife.
“And those,” sounded his deep voice, “whom--despite sinful vows and
all the devils in hell--God hath joined together, let not man put
asunder.”
Then we had a great fête in the famous Sängersaal, where three
hundred years earlier Walter von der Vogelweide, Wolfram von
Eschenbach, and the other minnesingers had joined their contest. And
as we danced in honest, homely numbers to a few rasping viols, with
Ilsa’s head crowned not with pearls but with wild roses, I thought of
that other dancing not yet two months gone in the castle by Worms,
when Marianna had whirled in my arms, and an Emperor had watched
us. But I said not a word to Ilsa, and for myself I had a happiness
passing utterance.
There was wine enough, and boar’s meat and venison enough at the
feast to satisfy even Adolf. At the end they took the “Brautschuhe”
from the feet of the resisting bride and tossed them to the unmarried
damsels, and the lucky two who won them were vowed to be sure of
dancing at their own weddings full soon.
The next morning, with Adolf, Gunter, Andrea, and a few other stout
fellows for escort, Ilsa and I rode away. It was another June day
of living green and light and fire. In the castle court all were
gathered to wish us god-speed; but my master stood out from the
company, and we bowed our heads to take his blessing. First he
gripped me hard by the hand, and spoke the words he afterward used
touching his own glad marriage.
“Walter, go forth with grateful heart, and be sure of this, God’s
highest gift on earth is to have a pious, cheerful, God-fearing,
home-keeping wife.”
Then more clearly he spoke in the hearing of them all.
“Dearest friends, depart. And know that now are days when the spirit
of the Lord is returned to the earth, when old evils are passing
away, when all things are becoming new. Yea! even now may the word
of the prophet be fulfilled. ‘It shall come to pass that I will pour
out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your old men shall see visions, and your young men
shall dream dreams. The sun shall be turned into smoke, and the moon
into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.
But it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of
the Lord shall be delivered.’”
Silently he kissed both Ilsa and myself upon our foreheads. We
mounted and called “_Auf wiedersehen!_” I at least with a catching of
the throat.
“_Auf wiedersehen!_” answered Dr. Luther. And so we rode down the
rocky way from the Wartburg.
A long time we went silently through the glorious country. Our horses
were headed North. Far, far away we could see the swelling crests of
the Harzland. We were riding homeward.
“Did ever folk go forth on a fairer day,” spoke I, at last, for the
sake of breaking a silence growing tense.
Ilsa tossed the blue tassel on her hat. “Or with fairer hearts
within,” she answered, with that sweet mingling of grave and gay
which made all people love her. “Oh! I have joy in the greenwood, in
the brooks and in the flowers, the sun on the slopes, the shimmering
in the trees; but it is a joy not as in the old days at Blankenburg.
For then even over the sun’s great disk hung the shadow of the over
mastering fear, the fear of God’s pitiless wrath. And now, lo! the
bands are broken, the prisons are emptied, the shadows are gone. The
dear God is our father, the blessed Christ is our elder brother, we
need not priest, nor mass, nor vows, nor pilgrimage to go to them.
Wherefore then should not the world be bright? All this we owe to the
love of heaven.”
“And under heaven,” I added reverently, “to the friar of Wittenberg,
Martin Luther.”
AFTERWORD
The memoirs of the worthy Graf von Lichtenstein zum Regenstein place
on the lips of Martin Luther various utterances for which this book
is the only proof that he actually made them _at the time alleged_.
It is inherently probable, however, that the memory of the narrator
has not failed him, for there is often abundant witness that Luther
expressed very similar sentiments at some other time and place, but
under like conditions.
The modern reader of this book will of course make due allowance for
the lack of historical perspective and for the possible personal
prejudice of a writer who was an actual participant in the noteworthy
scenes which he depicts. Certainly could one question the high-born
narrator he would disclaim intention of casting fresh fuel upon
theological conflagrations now so happily begun to smoulder, and
he would profess that he had only desired to make real to us the
wonderful personality of the friar of Wittenberg.
Pittsfield, Massachusetts. W. S. D.
The following pages contain advertisements of a few of the
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Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
silently corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences
within the text and consultation of external sources. Some hyphens
in words have been silently removed and some silently added when
a predominant preference was found in the original book. Except
for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text and
inconsistent or archaic usage have been retained.
Page 10: replaced “could not contravert” with “could not
controvert”.
Page 45: replaced “your Holiness’ mercy” with “your Holiness’s
mercy”.
Page 49: replaced “literaryv anities” with “literary vanities”.
Page 53: replaced “knew that Adolph” with “knew that Adolf”.
Page 54: replaced “such an idyl” with “such an idyll”.
Page 64: replaced “and Avincenna” with “and Avicenna”.
Page 69: replaced “_Aufwiedersehen_” with “_Auf wiedersehen_”.
Page 76: replaced “a beggering fee” with “a beggaring fee”.
Page 96: replaced “as wordly wise” with “as worldly wise”.
Page 98: replaced “lack a few” with “lack of a few”.
Page 118: replaced “sooner then I” with “sooner than I”.
Page 153: replaced “Petrarcha was” with “Petrarch was”.
Page 179: replaced “for you friend” with “for your friend”.
Page 192: replaced “those the Bohemian” with “those of the
Bohemian”.
Page 196: replaced “more and and more” with “more and more”.
Page 204: replaced “signori of vértú” with “signori of virtù”.
Page 218: replaced “ven from foreign lands” with “even from
foreign lands”.
Page 238: replaced “Fiat justicia” with “Fiat justitia”.
Page 242: replaced “Three things ar” with “Three things are”.
Page 257: replaced “and Mecklinburg” with “and Mecklenburg”.
Page 270: replaced “pious meditat on” with “pious meditation”.
Page 293: replaced “and overheard in” with “and overhead in”.
Page 342: replaced “Moritz von Blakenburg” with “Moritz von
Blankenburg”.
Page 359: replaced “grinned aimiably” with “grinned amiably”.
Page 365: replaced “every lanz-kneckt” with “every lanz-knecht”.
Page 393: replaced “win her serivce” with “win her service”.
Page 418: replaced “man of vertú” with “man of virtù”.
Ad for THE TOUCHSTONE OF FORTUNE: replaced “$12mo, 1.25 net”
with “12mo, $1.25 net”.
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Bold text is
surrounded by equal signs: =bold=.
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