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?