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.