Black Forest Village Stories
Clement listened to this dissertation in silence, only murmuring "Cornelia" from time to time. Ivo fell soundly asleep.
The world-spirit looks down at night upon convents and weeps with averted face.
At the last stroke of eleven Clement glided into the convent-yard. It was a balmy night in summer: a thunderstorm had rent the clouds, and their shattered masses still lingered in mid-air, now veiling, now releasing, the beams of the full moon. Clement knelt and cried, trembling and wringing his hands, "Devil! Beelzebub! Ruler of Hell! Appear and bestow thy treasures upon me, and my soul is thine! Appear! Appear!"
He listened with bated breath, but all was silent: nothing stirred, and nothing was audible but the distant baying of a watch-dog. Clement long remained cowering on the ground: at length, seeing and hearing nothing, he returned shivering to his bed.
Next day he sat at his desk pale and haggard. The black characters in his open book seemed to crawl around each other like snakes before his jaundiced eye. A letter was brought him. He had hardly read it when he sank fainting from his chair. An engagement-card slipped from his hand, on which was engraved "Cornelia Mueller and Herman Adam, betrothed." He was carried to his bed, where Ivo waited, trembling and in tears, until his friend drew breath again. A fever now ensued, in which Clement's teeth chattered and his frame writhed with convulsive starts. For three days he was delirious. He spoke of the devil, and barked like a dog: once only he said, gently closing his eyes, "Good-night, Cornelia." Ivo read the letter, as the footing upon which he and Clement stood fully justified him in doing; and here, at last, he found a slight clue to the jumble of occurrences which bewildered him. A wealthy uncle of Clement's mother had died, leaving her all his property: the brightest prospects opened to the future of the family. Ivo rarely left his friend's bedside, and, when compelled to do so, Bart usually took his place.
It was a painful duty. Clement generally brooded in a half-doze, with his eyes open, but apparently seeing nothing. He would ask Ivo to lay his hand upon his burning forehead, and then, closing his eyes, he said, "Ah!" as if the touch had expelled torturing spirits from the narrow tenement of his brain. At times he started up and furiously denounced the world and its heartlessness. If Ivo undertook to pacify him, he only turned his wrath against the comforter, struck at him with trembling hands, and cried, "You heartless loon, you can torture me, eh?"
Ivo bore all this calmly, though with tears. Sometimes he even experienced a sort of inward satisfaction at the thought that he was favored to suffer in the cause of friendship.
When Clement awoke on the fourth day, it seemed as if, somewhere in the infinity of space, and yet very, very near to him, a niche had opened filled with light: something around him, and something from within him, cried, "Clement!" He was restored to himself. For years after he was wont to tell how at that moment God seemed to shine upon him with all the rays of His glory, and to bring him back to Him and to himself. When he had recovered his composure, he said, lifting up his hands, "I hunger after the Lord's table." Calling for the confessor, he told him all, – how he had conjured the devil to aid him, how the devil had heard his prayer and then struck him to the earth. In deep contrition, he begged for a heavy chastisement and for absolution. The confessor imposed a slight penance, and urgently exhorted him to look upon what had taken place as a warning to flee from all worldly wishes and devote himself to the service of God alone.
Could any one have observed the face of Clement as he lay with his eyes closed in faith, while the confessor spoke the benediction over him and made the sign of the cross over his body in token of the forgiveness of his sins, – could any one have watched the tension of his muscles and the pulsation of his checks, – he would have felt with Clement the happy change which was going on within him. It seemed really and truly as if the ethereal hand of God were upon him, gently luring out the burden which oppressed him, and inspiring him with a new life and a better courage.
The new Clement was a different being from the old one. He moved about noiselessly, often looking around as if in dread of something. Then again he would suddenly stand still. Ivo could not encourage him; for not even to him had Clement dared to disclose the whole enormity of his wickedness.
After the next holidays, Clement was changed again. He looked fresh and blooming as before; but fires of a mysterious import darted from his eyes. One day, as they walked in the little wood called the "Burgholz," he drew his friend to his breast, and said, "Ivo, thank God with me, for the Lord has given me grace. It is our fault if the Lord does not do miracles in us, because we do not purify ourselves to be the vessels of his inscrutable will. I have made a vow to be a missionary and to announce to the heathen the salvation of the world. I have seen her again who stole my soul from the Lord; but in the midst of my gazes the world vanished from my eyes, the All-Merciful laid his hand upon me and gave me peace. I was drawn up into a mountain. There I sat until the sun went down and the night came on. All around was still and dead. Suddenly, afar off in the woods. I heard the voice of a boy singing, but not in earthly tones, -
"'Where Afric's sunny fountainsRoll down their golden sand.'"I knelt down, and the Lord heard my vow. My heart was no longer in my flesh: I held it in my hand. Kissing the rock beneath and the tree beside me, I inhaled the Spirit of God from them: I heard the leaves rustle and the clefts wail in whispered sorrow, weeping and yearning for the day when the cross shall be erected as the tree of life, standing aloft between earth and heaven, when the Lord shall appear and the world be saved, – when the rocks shall bound, and the trees sing songs of joy."
Falling on his knees, Clement continued: – "Lord, Lord, be gracious unto me! lay thy words upon my tongue, make me worthy to feel the love of the seraphs; pour out thy goodness richly over the brother of my heart; crush him; let him feel the swords which have pierced thy breast, and which rend the heart of the world. I thank thee, O Lord, that thou hast wedded me unto holy poverty: yea, I will devote myself wholly to the bliss of the folly that is in thee, and will suffer men to revile and persecute me until the tenement of my body shall be taken away, until I shall have outlived the corruption of this life. Lord, thou had made me rich that I may be as one of the poor. Blessed are the poor! Blessed are the sick!"
Kissing the feet of his friend, he remained prostrate for a long time, with his head pressed upon the earth: then he rose, and both went home in silence.
A nameless fear agitated the mind of Ivo: he felt the fulness of the self-sacrifice to which Clement had given himself; but he saw also its dreadful aberration: a sword pierced his heart.
He willingly followed his friend into the nocturnal regions of man's feeling and thought: it seemed a duty to keep him company and be at hand to aid him.
The lives of the saints were the first object of their studies. Once Ivo said, "I am rejoiced to see that revelation is still upon its march through the haunts of men; saints arise wherever the Lord has revealed himself and thereby imparted his wonder-working power, and whoso truly sanctifies himself may hope to be favored in like kind. Nowadays every town has once more its true patron saint, as of old, among the Greeks, its false tutelary deity. God is personally near us everywhere."
Clement, without answering, kissed Ivo's forehead. Presently, however, he spoke warmly of the heroes who with empty hand had conquered the world.
The life of St. Francis of Assisi enlisted their special interest: the story of his conversion from the stormy life of the world, and the manner in which he first cured a leper with a kiss, was particularly attractive to Clement. Ivo was pleased by the childlike harmony of the holy man with nature, and by his miraculous power over it; how he preached to the birds, and called upon them to sing the glory of God; how they listened devoutly until he had made the sign of the cross over them and blessed them, and how then they broke into a sounding chorus; how he contended in song with a nightingale for the honor of God until midnight, and how at last, when he was silent from fatigue, the bird flew upon his hand to receive his blessing. Whenever he read of the lamb rescued by the saint from slaughter, which always kneeled down during the singing of the choir, Ivo thought fondly of his Brindle.
On reading that the saint was so highly favored as miraculously to experience in his own body the wounds of Christ, the pierced hands and feet, and the thrust of the lance in his side, Clement wept aloud. He repeated his vow to become a Franciscan monk, and called upon Ivo to do the same, so that, according to the rules of the Order, they might walk about the world together, courting tortures and troubles and living upon alms.
With insatiable thirst Clement drank of the streams of mysticism and hurried his friend along with him.
12.
THE COLLEGE CHAP
In the holidays Ivo was again powerfully attracted to the realities of life. It was not so easy then to exclude the doings of the outer world, and wrap oneself up into self-suggested thoughts and feelings. Such exaltations are, in fact, only feasible outside of the family circle, and therefore outside of the sphere of real life. Scarcely had he returned to the village, when the family ties once more asserted their claims, and the manifold and interlaced fates and fortunes of the villagers forced themselves upon his interest and sympathy. He knew what lived and moved behind all their walls. He awoke to his former life as from a dream.
One evening he met Constantine standing before his house, chewing a straw and looking sullen.
"What's the matter?" asked Ivo.
"Pshaw! Nothing you can do any good to."
"Well, you'd better tell me."
"You've no taste for the world, and can't understand it. Whitsuntide is almost come, and then there's the bel-wether dance, and I haven't a sweetheart. I might have had one, but I was too saucy; and yet I don't want any other, and I'd be unconscionably mad if she were to take up with some one else. Such a bel-wether dance as this will be I would'nt give a copper for."
"Who is the proud beauty?"
"You know her well enough: Emmerence?"
Ivo barely repressed a start. He asked, quickly, -
"Have you gone with her long?"
"Why, that's what I'm telling you. She won't look at me. She's just as prudish and coy as a Diana."
"Do you mean to act fairly by her, and marry her?"
"What? Fairly? Of course. But I can't talk about marrying yet. Don't you know the old student-song? -
"I will love thee, I will love thee;But to marry, but to marry,Is far, far, far, far above me.""Then I must agree with Emmerence."
"Fiddle! No offence, but you don't know any thing about it. These girls must be content just to get sweethearts like me. The squire's Babbett would stretch out her ten fingers to get hold of me: but she couldn't represent the Church any more, as at Gregory's first mass, and I don't want her."
During this colloquy Peter and Florian had come up to where they were standing.
"Ah!" said the latter, "does the doctor give us the light of his countenance? I thought the like of us weren't worth his while to waste words in talking to."
"Yes," added Peter; "all the boys in the village say that the like of you was never seen, Ivo. You behave as if you were born in Stuttgard and not in Nordstetten."
"My goodness!" said poor Ivo, thus beset on all sides, "I never thought of such a thing as being proud. Come; let's go get a drink."
"That's the way to talk," said Florian. "It's my blowout, for I am going off to-morrow."
The villagers opened their eyes at seeing Ivo passing through the street in company with the trio. It was an extraordinary quartette.
"Have we so much honor?" said the hostess of the Eagle, as Ivo entered with the others. "I'll put a candle into the back-room right-away. What'll you have? A stoup from the other side the Rhine?"
"We'll stick to Wurtemberg for the present," said Constantine, "and Ivo is going to drink with us. He's a Nordstetten boy, like ourselves."
"Not like you for good luck," replied the hostess.
"I'll give you a riddle, you chatter-box: why are women like geese?" retorted Constantine.
"Because such gooseheads as you want to rule 'em," answered the hostess.
"Babbett, just you be glad stupidity isn't heavy to carry, or you'd 'a' been laid up this many a year. I'll tell you why they're like. Geese and women are first-rate, all except their bills. Go get us a quart of sixen."
"You're not good for a creutzer," said the hostess, laughing, as she went to execute the order. We have perhaps already recognised her as the Babbett who played a part in the story of the gamekeeper of Muehringen. Caspar had bought the Eagle; and Babbett was an excellent hostess. She could entertain all the guests, and had an answer ready for every question and a retort for every sally. The "gentlemen" no longer confined their custom to the Dipper, but now honored the Eagle with their visits likewise.
When all had "wetted their whistle," Florian began the song-
"A child of freshest clayDoth at our table stay:Hey! Hey!" -with which students usually welcome a new arrival. This was followed by in
"Ça, Ça! be merry,"which the words had been paraphrased into "eating it, beating it." This introduction of university civilization into the retreats of village life was the work of Constantine. The boys were very proud of their new songs. Ivo joined in, lest he should appear "stuck up."
"Edite, bibite"The three comrades were well drilled. Peter sang the air; and, though he had a fine voice, he spoiled it by bawling, – for peasants when they sing, and parsons when they preach, are equally apt to suppose that an overstrained voice is more beautiful and impressive than a natural one. Constantine always moved up and down as he sang, clenching his fists and buffeting the air. Florian rested his elbows on the table and sang with closed eyes, to exclude all outside distraction.
The first pint having been despatched in short order, the college chap cried, "Babbett, one more of them: it takes two legs to walk on," and then sang, -
"Wine, ho! Wine, ho!Or I'll stagger to and fro.I won't stagger, and I can't stand,And I won't be a Lutherand.Wine, ho! Wine, ho!Or I'll stagger so."Then, without a pause, he sang again: -
"She I don't want to see,She's every day with me;And she I love so dear,She's far away from here."Can't get a pretty one,Won't take a homely one;Must have some sort o' one:What shall I do?""Why, Constantine, are you so smart at Polish begging?" asked Babbett. "Is it true that Emmerence sent you next door with a 'God help you'?"
"I'll bet you three pints of the best that she'll go to the bel-wether dance with me, and with nobody else."
Florian sang, -
"Fret for a pretty girl?That would be a shame:Turn to the next one,And ask for her name."Peter fell in: -
"If I have no sweetheart,I live without distress;There's morning every day,And evening no less."Constantine sang, -
"When it snows the snow is white,And when it freezes the frost is bright;What noodles do with fear and frightI do with all my might."Florian began: -
"It's just a week to-day, to-day,My sweetheart told me to go away:She cried, and she sobb'd,But I was gay."And
"Three weeks before EasterThe snow will be flush,My girl will be married,And I in the slush.""That's not the way," said Constantine: "turn round the handle: " -
"Three weeks before Easter,There'll be slush in the snow:The jade will be marriedAnd I'll courting go."Laughter and applause from all sides of the room were the reward of this poetic effort. Peter then struck up: -
"Sweetheart, you thief,You're all my grief;And while I live,No comfort you'll give."And
"If I but knewWhere my sweetheart has gone,My heart wouldn't beHalf so weary and lone."Florian sang again: -
"If you would live like a little bird,And have no cares to shend ye;Just marry, till the summer's round,Whome'er the spring may send ye."Constantine sang again: -
"I come to see you;It pleased me to come;But I won't come any longer:It's too far from home."It wouldn't be too far,And it wouldn't be too rough,But, just understand,You're not near good enough."Ivo sat at the table, absorbed in unpleasant reflections. He called to mind how at this hour he was usually to be found at his solitary lamp, struggling to penetrate the mysteries of creation and redemption, – how far he was then removed from all the doings of men, from all the wishes and aims of individuals; and he contrasted all this with what he now saw of the life led by his natural comrades in age and station. The nucleus of all their thoughts and actions was love, whether they made it the subject of wanton jibes or of strains of tender longing. Once more existence lay before him, severed, as by a sharp steel, into two irreconcilable halves, – the secular and the ecclesiastical. Babbett, who had watched him closely, had not failed to perceive the irksome twitches of the muscles of his face: she now approached the singers, saying, -
"Why, a'n't you ashamed of yourselves? Can't you sing a single decent song?"
Constantine replied, -
"Well, if you don't like it,I like it the more;And, if you can do better,Just put in your oar.""Yes," said Florian: "we'll sing a good song if you'll join in."
"Oh, yes, I'll join in."
"What shall it be?" asked Peter.
"'Honest and true.'"
"'Is my wealth and my store'? no, I don't like that," said Constantine.
"Well, then, 'Ere the morning dew was wasted.'"
"Yes." Babbett sang lustily, and the others fell in: -
"Ere the morning dew was wasted,Ere the night-blown grass was shrunk,Ere another's eye had tasted,On my love mine eyes were sunk."Shoot the fox and rabbit early,Ere they travel in the wood;Love the girls ere they grow surly,Or forget how to be wooed."Till with vines the millstone teemeth,And the mill-race runs with wine,While life's current in us streameth,Thou art mine and I am thine."Ivo thanked Babbett warmly for the pretty song; but Constantine immediately followed it up with
"I'm as poor as a mouse:There's no door to my house,There's no lock to my door,And I've no sweetheart more."It's all up with meOver land and sea:When the Danube dries upOur wedding shall be."And it will not dry up,And is wet to this day;To find another sweetheartI must up and away.""Now let's have 'A boy he would a walking go,'" said Babbett.
"Keep your boy at home," replied Constantine.
"Oh, you! If you'd been kept at home, they wouldn't have turned you out like a dog in the wrong kennel."
"Strike up," said Florian; and they sang: -
"Blithe let me be,If 'tis but well with thee,Although my youth and freshnessMust wither hopelessly."No streamlet on the hill-sideBut finds its course to run;But not a hand to openMy pathway to the sun."The sun, the moon, the stars,And all the firmament,Shall hang in mourning for meTill my long night be spent."Ivo fidgeted in his chair: this song was the expression of his own fate.
"Don't go," said Constantine, perceiving his uneasiness.
"Babbett, you don't do like the host at Cana: you give the good wine first and the bad afterward. You've brought Lutheran and Catholic wine together: that'll be a mixed marriage."
"'When the mice have had enough, the flour is bitter,'" answered the hostess.
"'Tell you what," cried Constantine; "we'll drink hot wine now."
"You've had enough for to-day," said Barbara.
"What we can't drink we can pour into our shoes. Let's make a night of it. Are you for it? – and you? and you?"
Every one nodded, and sang, -
"Brothers, let's go itAnd drink while we're young;Age will come quicklyAnd dry up the tongue.For the gentle wineWas made for good fellows:Brothers, be mellow,And drink the good wine."The "warm wine" which was brought would have provoked a smile from any American or English boon companion. It bore about the same relation to mulled wine which water-gruel has to pepper-pot. The heat it had received from the fire was counterbalanced by the infusion of water until a child might have fattened upon it unharmed. But Germans can sing more drinking-songs over a cup of vinegar than would be heard in an American bar-room where brandy enough has been swallowed to account for a dozen murders.
Constantine welcomed the arrival of the beverage with a song, which he accompanied with his fists on the table: -
"I and my old wife,We go the whole figure;She carries the beggar's pouch,And I sing the jigger.Bring some Bavarian beer;Let's be Bavarians here;Bavarians, Bavarians let us be here."She's gone to town to beg,I wait and snicker;What she'll bring back with herI'll spend for liquor.Bring some Bavarian beer," &c.It grew late. A boy had brought Ivo the key to his father's house. The beadle had come to announce the hour for silence, but Constantine quieted him with a glass of wine: the same deep artifice succeeded with the watchman, who came an hour later. Constantine began to mimic the professors and boast of his student's pranks. Ivo rose to go. The others tried to hold him, but Constantine made room for him: in Ivo's absence there was nothing to interfere with his making himself the hero of the adventures of other students. He called after him, however, to "take the room-door into bed with him;" but Ivo did not hear it, for he was already in the open air.
The soft light of the summer moon was poured over the land, and seemed to strew the earth with calm and quiet. Ivo frequently stood still, laid his hand on his beating breast, and took off his cap to permit the gentle gales to fan him. When, at home, he undertook to undress himself, he felt doubly how his quick pulses were chasing each other: he left the house once more, therefore, to find refreshment in the peaceful silence of night. He walked along the highroad and across the fields: he was happy, he knew not why; he could have walked on forever: with his heart beating joyfully, the love of life was revived in him, and carried him aloft over the lovely, peaceful earth. Having returned home at last, he saw that the door of the first-floor chamber was open. Almost unconsciously, he entered, and stood spell-bound; for there lay Emmerence. The moon shone on her face: her head lay under her right arm, and her left hand rested on the frame. Ivo's breast heaved: he trembled from head to foot; he knew not what befell him; but he bent over Emmerence and kissed her cheek, almost as gently as the moonbeam itself. Emmerence seemed to feel it, for, turning upon her side, she murmured, "A cat, cat, cat." He waited a while to see if she would wake. But she slept on, and the august stillness recalled him to himself. Striking his forehead, he left the room. Arrived at his own bedside, he threw himself upon the floor, and, torturing his inmost soul, he cried, "God forgive me! let me die! I have sinned! I am a castaway, a villain! Lord God, stretch out thy right hand and crush me!"
Shivering with cold, he awoke, and found it broad day. He crept into his bed. His mother brought him coffee, found him looking very ill, and urged him not to get up; but he would not be dissuaded, for he had made up his mind to go to church that morning.
In passing the stable he heard Emmerence singing within: -
"No house to live,No farm to tend,No gauds to give,No money to lend,And such a lassieAs I amWill never find a friend.""What makes you so down-hearted?" Ivo could not refrain from asking. "Didn't you sleep well?"
"I don't know any thing about sleeping well or ill. I am tired when I go to bed, and my eyes shut. I just happened to think of the song, and so I sang it."
"You needn't deny it: you would like to have Constantine for your sweetheart, wouldn't you?"
"Him! I'd rather take the French simpleton, or Blind Conrad: I've no mind to make up the balance of his half-dozen. I don't want any sweetheart: I am going to remain single."
"That's what all the girls say."
"You shall see whether I am in earnest about it or not."
