Chapter I (2)

The old man stopped, pushed aside with his hatchet a few dry branches that lay at our feet, and then drew from under his green apron a small bone snuff-box, from which he offered me a pinch. I took a few grains for the sake of courtesy, and then, with the most perfect innocence, for I had not yet penetrated into the real state of affairs, asked:

"Is it possible, Herr Liborius? I thought the French lady took charge of the housekeeping."

The old man shrugged his shoulders, slowly stuffed the pinch of snuff into his little hooked nose, sneezed several times, and after a long delay replied: "All that glitters is not gold, Herr Candidate. But let every man sweep before his own door. See, here we are at Uncle Joachim's rooms. Will you pay him a call? He'll surely be glad to see you. Not a human creature ever crosses his threshold except myself, his dog Diana, and Fraeulein Luise."

We had walked the whole length of the park, to where a tall fence divided it from the open fields, and were again approaching the castle, when we reached a small summerhouse connected with the outbuildings by a long hothouse. As I nodded assent, Liborius knocked, and then, without waiting for the "Come in!" raised the latch of the crumbling old door. No one was within. But at first I could not believe that this utterly cheerless room was occupied by a member of the baron's family. Against one wall stood a more than plain bed, covered with an old horse-blanket; a huge arm-chair, from whose worn leather covering the horsehair stuffing here and there protruded, was at one of the windows, and at the other a large pine table, without a cloth, on which lay in excellent order numerous thick account-books, writing-materials, boxes of seeds, and a leaden tobacco-box; in the corner stood a narrow wardrobe, and on pegs along the wall hung a few guns and fishing-rods. This constituted the entire furniture of the yellow-washed room. But above the bed hung the portrait of a beautiful woman, and a couple of old copper engravings, representing Napoleon at Fontainebleau, and on his death-bed, in worm-eaten brown frames.

"It is not exactly a princely lodging!" said the gardener, "but he chose it himself. Well, it makes little difference where we stretch our limbs if we haven't spared them from early till late. At night all cats are gray, and any four walls do well enough for a sleeping-room."

Then he let me out again, and I went back to the castle, often shaking my head over the many things I had learned, which had considerably lowered my high opinion of the people and things around me.

* * * * *

When the church-bells rang the next morning, I went to the window and looked down into the courtyard. A large old-fashioned coach, to which two fine horses were harnessed, was standing before the steps. Almost immediately the baron came out of the doorway, carefully leading his wife.

Mademoiselle Suzon and the two children followed. They took their seats in the carriage--Achatz mounting the box, so that if those within moved a little nearer together there would be room for a slender person. I waited to see the Canoness, who was always late, come out of the castle. But the coach-door was closed by the footman, who sprang up behind, and the vehicle lumbered slowly away.

Is she, too, like Uncle Joachim, no church-goer? I thought, and felt that this would have chagrined me greatly, for I hoped to impress her especially by my sermon.

But I had fretted in vain.

I set out at a rapid pace, and, having discovered a meadow-path, which, intersecting the avenue, led straight to the village and church, I arrived even before the party from the castle.

The sexton received me, ushered me into the vestry, and helped me don the black robe in which I always seemed to myself especially trim and ecclesiastical. While the last verse of the hymn was being sung, I saw by my pocket-mirror that my locks were parted down the middle of my head in perfect order, and my hands faultlessly clean, and then entered the crowded church.

I had carefully examined and tried my voice in it the day before. It was as plain and bare as most of our village churches in the Mark, having been hastily rebuilt with scanty means after a conflagration, and even robbed of the monuments which, as the sexton said, had come down from Catholic times. On the whitewashed pillars hung nothing but dusty and faded bridal and funeral wreaths, with long black or white streamers and tarnished silver spangles. There was also a black tablet with a few hooks, from which were suspended the war medals of anno '13, '14, and '15, with the names of their wearers in clumsy white letters beneath. The organ alone was handsome, its pipes brightly polished, and its notes--for the schoolmaster understood his business--greeted me with a harmonious melody as I climbed the steep stairs to the pulpit.

While the last verse died away I had just time to scan my devout congregation. Opposite to me, in the baronial pew lined with red cloth, sat the party that had come in the carriage. In the front seat, at its left, was the pastor's plump old wife; the lines on her cheerful face were to-day drawn into a peculiarly intent expression. I told myself that I should have in her a particularly critical auditor. Behind these pews, in a dense throng, were the peasants and cottagers of the village, with their wives and children, whose singing, thanks to the musical teacher, was far more endurable to hear than is usually the case in our unmelodious region. Spite of my self-confidence, I was forced to subdue the quickened throbbing of my heart as I saw the eyes of all these strangers fixed steadily and not exactly benevolently upon me. I was really glad not to discover among them one pair that, within the last few days, had already more than once disturbed my peace of mind.

But just as I was opening the Bible on the pulpit desk to read the text, the door at the end of the narrow aisle, between the rows of pews, noiselessly opened, and, amid a stream of sunlight and spring air, that was instantly shut out again, the Canoness entered. Instead of passing through the rows to take her seat in the baron's pew, she unceremoniously sat down on the farthest bench, where an old woman, in whom I now recognized Mother Lieschen, made room for her with a friendly nod. No one else in the church noticed her; this late arrival appeared to be considered perfectly proper.

So I began my sermon in a somewhat unsteady voice, but it soon grew firmer. The text was: "Many are called, but few are chosen."

The doctrine of predestination had frequently been the theme of our debates at the university, and the sermon as I had brought it in my trunk bore evident traces of the learned apparatus with which I was accustomed to defend my views. For my present congregation, however, I had wisely omitted this, and restricted myself to bringing the kingdom of God as I had dreamed of it, in vast outlines, but colored with brilliant hues, before the imagination of my listeners. It resembled, as it were, a beautiful fairy palace, to which led an immense, broad staircase. This symbolized the temporal world in which, separated by steps, the many called and the few chosen hurried on together. For, I said, as all nature shows a gradual development from a lower to a higher stage, in which no creature has reason to complain, since thus alone can the omnipotence of God, which renders everything that might be possible actual, reveal itself; so it is compatible with the Creator's infinite righteousness that he does not endow all his creatures equally, but makes distinctions, and, with apparent severity, favors one and neglects another. Thus only could he have completed the wondrous picture of the world, without leaving any step vacant or overleaping transitions. If dissatisfaction should thereby arise, the peace that is not of this world will at some future time silence all complaints and reconcile all contradictions. On the day the portals of that palace would open at the sound of the last trump, all who were waiting on the stairs would be invited to celebrate the entrance into the heavenly mansions. Ay, even those on the lowest step. For it is explicitly written: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I now adorned this idea of a staircase, which, as the final tableau of a fairy opera, would have done credit to a scene-painter, with the necessary lay figures and heroic characters, which I will briefly pass over here. It is only necessary to say that in the elect on the upper step I described with tolerable clearness people of the stamp of my employer and his family--high-born, wealthy mortals, endowed with every advantage of nature and education, and also with the grace of true religion; while on the lowest step crawled poverty-stricken creatures, bereft of happiness, like Mother Lieschen, who, however, would also be saved if they gathered the treasures which moth and rust do not destroy.

After I had pronounced the benediction over the congregation and descended the steep stairs of the pulpit, I felt fairly intoxicated by my own fiery eloquence, and considered it only natural that the baron should signify his most gracious approval by a nod of his handsome head. The pastor's wife, on the contrary, had not changed her expression in the least, and did not stir even when I passed close by her. I forgave her from my heart for being unable to feel friendly to the new star that outshone her husband.

The sexton, however, praised me lavishly. Only I had made my sermon a little too aristocratic.

* * * * *

I could scarcely wait for the dinner-bell to ring, as I fully expected that the whole conversation over the Sunday roast would turn upon my sermon. But in this I was bitterly disappointed.

A guest had arrived who had not witnessed my oratorical triumph, a thorough man of the world, as I perceived at the first glance. He was called Cousin Kasimir; I do not know whether the relationship was through the baron or his wife, for he was so disagreeable to me that I vouchsafed him no special notice. The young gentleman had ridden over from a neighboring estate, where he was living as a student of agriculture, lured less by the aroma of the baronial table, which even on Sunday promised no choice dishes, than, as everybody knew, by designs on his cousin, the Canoness, in which he had long obstinately persisted, though without any form of encouragement. He seemed to have resolved not to attempt to take the coy fortress by storm, but induce it to surrender by tenacious persistence. So he sat between Fraeulein Luise and the young girl Leopoldine, without addressing a word to either, but zealously striving to entertain the whole company by amusing anecdotes, bits of gossip, and jests with Uncle Joachim. The latter always gave him sharp, curt replies, whose quiet scorn the young man did not appear to feel. In the intervals he discussed politics with his host, of course from the standpoint of the nobility; and Mademoiselle Suzon was the only lady at table who could boast of a slight show of gallantry from him.

On the other hand, he did not seem to be aware of the existence of the mistress of the house, nor of my important self, though the baron had presented me to him with some flattering words about my intellectual gifts.

Nothing was said of my sermon.

Wounded vanity naturally led me to cherish a secret, but all the more bitter, hatred of the new guest. Even now, though I have long since learned to smile at this pitiable youthful weakness, I must, for truth's sake, admit that Cousin Kasimir, fine gentleman though he might be, was an insufferable fellow, and had a face that might aptly be styled a hang-dog countenance.

Very much annoyed, I went out into the garden as soon as we rose from the table. I should have been glad to meet my honest friend Liborius, not to hear him praise my pulpit eloquence, but to question him about the object of my hate. He was, however, nowhere to be seen. He spent his Sunday afternoons, as I learned later, in a neighboring village, where he had placed a daughter, the child of an unlawful youthful love, in the charge of worthy people. The baron inexorably banished everything bordering upon unchaste relations from his pure neighborhood.

I sat for a while under the budding trees on one of the most remote benches in the park, and the worm of unsatisfied vanity gnawed my heart. At last I consoled myself with the thought that the fitting opportunity to speak of such exalted subjects had not yet come, and when the conceited nobleman had taken leave the neglect would be more than made up.

So I at last rose and resolved to have the church opened again and improvise a short time on the organ, for I was accustomed to be my own Orpheus, and quell, by the power of music, the wild beasts which, spite of my religion, ever and anon stirred in my heart.

But as I approached the little summer-house where Uncle Joachim lodged, I saw the door open and Fraeulein Luise come out, taking leave of her friend with a cordial clasp of the hand.

I confess that this meeting was not exactly welcome. Her icy manner--even colder than usual--at dinner had told me plainly enough that I had by no means advanced in her esteem. But in certain moods a vain man longs to hear himself talked about at any cost, and would rather endure the most pitiless verdict than the offense of silence.

Therefore, instead of turning into a side-path, I quickened my steps toward my foe, who, without taking the slightest notice of me, friendly or otherwise, quietly pursued her way to the kitchen-garden.

I soon came up with her, bowed politely, and asked whether she objected to my bearing her company a few moments.

"Not in the least," she calmly replied. She merely desired to look at the young plants, which was not an occupation in which one could not be disturbed.

We walked for some distance side by side in silence. She did not wear the gray dress to-day, but a black one, whose contrast made her fair face look still whiter. A thin gold chain, from which hung an old-fashioned locket, was twisted around her neck. I afterward learned that it contained her mother's miniature. I do not remember ever having seen her wear any other ornament.

Her expression was even colder and more repellent than usual, yet she seemed to me more beautiful than on the first day I saw her. She again wore over her golden hair the little black kerchief I thought her most becoming head-gear.

"You were at church to-day, Fraeulein," I began at last, for I felt that I must hear something about my sermon.

"Yes," she answered, gazing calmly at the freshly dug beds by the path. "But I shall not go again when you preach."

"Why?"

"Because I will not have the God I love marred by you."

This was too much. I stopped as though a loaded pistol had been fired under my nose.

"Permit me to ask," I said, essaying a superior smile, "in what respect the God you love differs from him whom we all, including myself, have worshiped in our Sunday service to-day."

"Oh, if you wish to know," she replied with a slight curl of the lip, which, spite of my wrath at her depreciation, I thought bewitching. "You have made a God who reigns in heaven very much as an aristocratic patron of the church rules his estate. When there is a harvest festival here, and the peasants come into the court-yard of the castle to cheer the noble family, they arrange themselves on the steps very much as, in your imagination, humanity stands on your staircase: the magistrates at the top, then the villagers, graded according to the amount of their property and cattle, and at the very bottom Mother Lieschen, who owns nothing but a wretched hut, a dog, and a goat, yet nevertheless receives a gracious glance because, as you think, she is poor in spirit. To certain ears this may have been an admirable prophecy of the Day of Judgment. In the ears of God it must have sounded somewhat differently."

"Then you do not admit the gradual development of all mortal creatures?"

"Certainly. Who would deny it? Only the image of poor humanity probably looks somewhat different to the omniscient eyes of God than when seen through the spectacles of our arrogant prejudices. If there were such a staircase, reaching to the portals of heaven, Mother Lieschen might perhaps stand on the topmost step, and certain others, to whom you have borne such flattering testimony, at the very bottom."

I wished to give the conversation, which was becoming more and more embarrassing to me, a different turn, and said in the gayest tone I could assume:

"You seem to be a special patroness of this old dame, who doubtless possesses a multitude of secret virtues. You preferred the seat by her side to one in the baron's pew."

She now stopped in her turn, flashing so strange a glance at me from her brown eyes, that all inclination to jest vanished.

"Yes," she said, "I like to sit where my heart attracts me. I think there would be neither patrons' pews in the church, nor hereditary tombs in the grave-yard, if people did not merely bear God's words on their lips, but were aware that we are all sinners and lack the grace we ought to have before God. Their forgetfulness of it is the fault of the false expounders of the gospel, who value worldly profit more than the kingdom of heaven. Ay, look at me, Herr Weissbrod. You, too, are among them, spite of your excellent theological testimonials and St. John's head. Otherwise you would not speak of the old dame with pitying contempt, merely because she is the poorest person in the parish. First learn to know her as I do. Then I hope your derision of her secret virtues will cease. That she _does_ conceal them is possibly her greatest merit, and God, who seeth in secret, will perhaps reward her openly."

She turned away with a hasty gesture of indignation, and seemed about to leave me. But I was not so easily shaken off.

"I have irritated you, Fraeulein," I said somewhat dejectedly. "We will discuss my theology no further. But I should be very grateful if you would give me some other particulars of your protegee. I really did not intend to despise the old dame on account of her poverty."

"Really?" she retorted. "Did you not? Well, I will believe you, though you don't seem to possess much knowledge of character. But you would be greatly mistaken if you supposed that Mother Lieschen is one of the poor in spirit. Let me tell you that I owe all, or at any rate a large share, of my love and reverence for God, and the small amount of Christian patience I have acquired, solely to my intercourse with this sorely tried soul. When I made her acquaintance, six years ago, I had a defiant, despairing heart. Now I believe, in all humility and cheerfulness, that my Creator will impose upon me no heavier burden than I can bear, and know that a human being who possesses genuine nobility can never lose it, no matter into what society he may be thrown. Only he must fear God more than men, even those who, in your opinion, stand on the highest step, next the angels and archangels, as at court the second rank of nobility is close beside the royal personage. You wonder to hear a Canoness speak so irreverently of noble birth. But I have seen too many base and contemptible acts perpetrated by people with the longest pedigrees, to feel very proud of my ancestors. There will be quite a different Almanach de Gotha in heaven from the one here below, I think, and perhaps there Mother Lieschen will have a nine-pointed coronet over her name."

Wondering more and more, I made no reply. She had hurled these remarks at me with sharp abruptness, while her fair face flushed, and the little locks on her temples trembled with repressed excitement. I had had no idea that an aristocratic young lady could cherish such democratic ideas and express them as a matter of course.

"Tell me more about this rare Christian," I asked at last.

"Oh, that is soon done. She lost three fine sons in the war of liberation; her only daughter was led astray by a dissolute fellow--also one of those on the highest step; her husband, who until then had been thoroughly steady, was driven by sorrow to the demon of drink, and died a wretched death. She herself was at first utterly crushed by all these troubles, especially as the little property she possessed was lost through faithless people. But she remembered the promise, 'All things work together for good, to them that love God,' and resolved that she would not suffer herself to be overwhelmed, but in her great desolation constantly sought those who were as sorely tried, nursed the sick, and shared her last mouthful with a poor outcast till the girl could maintain herself. While thus employed, her old heart became at last so cheerful that whenever I am with her all my own somber thoughts leave me, and I would rather cross her threshold than stand on the topmost step of your staircase and be invited to enter by an aristocratic archangel, as the reception of the few elect was just being held. Now I will bid you good-evening, Herr Weissbrod. I have something to tell Uncle Joachim."

After passing through the kitchen-garden, we had again reached the little summer-house. The Canoness nodded haughtily, raised the latch, and left me standing outside, disturbed and bewildered.

* * * * *

But, strange to say, roughly as the shower-bath had dashed over me, I did not feel in the least chilled, but revived and strengthened, as we do after a rain which, though drenching us to the skin, has at the same time washed all the dust and feverish heat from our limbs, so that, even while shaking and shivering, we can not help laughing at the baptism.

Even had her words been more severe and stinging they would have inflicted no sharp wounds, for the voice which uttered them soothed me like balm, though the tones were by no means gentle, but often harsh with indignation. Yet, when she spoke of the persons and things that were dear to her, one could imagine no richer melody. I felt in that hour a strange ambition to have her voice some day pronounce my name also in that sweet, thrilling tone.

And how her whole appearance had bewitched me, while she lectured me so pitilessly!

I was lost in reverie as I returned to the castle. Cousin Kasimir met me, and asked if I knew where Fraeulein Luise was. I shook my head. Even his hang-dog face did not seem quite so disagreeable when the pinched lips uttered that name.

And how I felt an hour later when, unable to fix my thoughts upon any occupation, I sat at my tower-window and suddenly heard beneath me the piano and then the voice for which I had so passionately longed. To-day, since the time for sleep had not yet come, there was no repression, but a power and fullness of melody which, when a note seemed to soar triumphantly upward, or to sink into the very depths of the soul, sometimes brought my heart into my throat. It was another aria by the same composer, who was her special favorite. For nearly an hour this pure flood of harmony flowed through my penitent soul. I may truly say that whatever transformation of my nature her words had failed to accomplish was completed by her singing.

When the supper hour arrived, I sent word by the servant that I begged to be excused, I was not well.

With this fib my first Sunday ended. I was, on the contrary, so rapturously well that I could not bear to be confined within four walls, but slipped out into the open air and sauntered for several hours, with an overflowing heart, under the waving branches of the trees, and over the young grain sprouting in the dark fields, until all the lights in the castle were extinguished.

* * * * *

If, from the foregoing confession of faith, you have drawn the inference that Herr Johannes Weissbrod had regularly fallen in love with Fraeulein Luise von X., the conjecture might be termed premature.

True, I had had as yet no personal experience in this department, but I knew from the stories of others, and my own few observations, that love includes the tender desire to take possession of the beloved object. Even in its boldest dreams my agitated soul had not felt a trace of such a yearning. If ever so-called Platonic affection existed, it was in my case, though some eccentricities would have given a third person cause to smile.

For, albeit I could not help thinking constantly of her, I did not feel this constraint, after the manner of lovers, as a sweet bond imposed upon me, but struggled against my chains, and had moments when I almost hated them, though even then she seemed to me one of the most remarkable human beings I had ever met. At such times I would gladly have practiced some little act of retaliation upon her--of course merely to shame her, and show that I really was no such contemptible fellow, but with my intellect and learning could have held my own beside any arrogant young lady.

I also detected in myself a secret envy, which will show you how far I was from the usual condition of being in love. I would gladly have been in Uncle Joachim's place, even for a few hours, to feel how it seemed to be liked and honored by this girl. And, if this could not be, I would have even consented to be transformed by some magic spell into Mother Lieschen.

At night I dreamed that the beautiful staircase to the portal of heaven was before me perfectly empty; but when I tried to mount it I constantly slipped back, till at last I remained with bruised knees on the lowest step. Just at that moment the door opened and St. Peter came out--who, however, bore a striking likeness to Uncle Joachim--leading with his right hand the Canoness and with his left Mother Lieschen. All three looked down at me and suddenly began to laugh. I started up angrily, and gave them a sharp lecture on the wickedness of malice. While I was in the midst of it, the little old baroness came up, looked compassionately at me, and said, "Give me your hand, my son." Then she led me up the stairs with as light a step as if she were no longer an invalid, saying, "You see, Johannes, it is perfectly easy, only we must leave behind the learned luggage you have dragged with you in your trunk." And, indeed, it seemed as if I had received winged shoes, like the messenger of the Greek gods, yet the stairs appeared endless. Higher and higher I floated, but still saw the three at the same distance above me, only they were no longer laughing, and the vision constantly grew paler, till at last I beheld nothing but the horn buttons on St. Peter's gray coat, glittering like stars, and the Canoness's golden hair shone like the sun on a winter day, while Mother Lieschen's gray locks fluttered around her little pale face like the autumn clouds about the moon. When at last the dread that I should never get up found utterance in a shrill cry, I woke and felt ashamed that the sun was shining on my bed.

* * * * *

My first business that morning was to send for the barber who shaved the baron every day, and have him cut my hair. True, what remained was still brushed behind my ears, the parting, however, was no longer exactly in the middle, but a little on the left side. When I went down with my pupil to the history lesson I was vexed that this important change in my outer man, symbolical of a transformation of my views, did not receive a glance from her on whom I hoped it would produce an impression. Achatz alone made some foolish remark about it, which I sternly reproved. Fraeulein Luise again sat at the window, sewing on a child's jacket, as completely unmoved as if nothing had passed between us the day before.

So she remained during the whole week. I did not understand how I could have fancied, even in a dream, that I heard her laugh, for she never laughed.

I should have been delighted to meet her again alone, but she never permitted it. So I had no resource except to continue in my next sermon our conversation in the kitchen-garden, an expedient which gave me one advantage--she would be unable to interrupt me.

But, while in the act of connecting my sermon with my cleverly chosen text, the old pastor sent me word by one of the school-children that, as his foot was now tolerably well, he intended to occupy the pulpit himself on the following Sunday.

This greatly annoyed me. When the Sunday came I should have preferred to stay away from church, especially as I did not know which would be the most suitable seat for me. I could not take my place in the baron's pew without a special invitation, which was not given, and I did not consider it exactly proper to sit among the congregation. So I chose an excellent expedient by joining the schoolmaster in the organ-loft, where a dozen towheaded children stared at me. Requesting the worthy man, by a condescending gesture, not to trouble himself about me, I sat down on a stool behind the low wooden railing.

From here I could overlook the whole church except the last bench under the organ-loft, which was the very one that most interested me, because I supposed Mother Lieschen and some one else to be there. But I had not much time for such thoughts.

While the hymn was being sung, the door of the vestry opened and the old pastor appeared, accompanied by the sexton, who carried the Bible, while his wife walked by his side, supporting his feeble steps with her strong hand. With trembling knees the old clergyman slowly ascended the pulpit stairs, and was obliged to rest for a time--which he passed in silent prayer--in a chair that had been placed for him. Then he rose as if refreshed, and, when he had opened the Bible and cast a long, gentle glance over the congregation, he seemed ten years younger, and his wrinkled but kindly apostolic face glowed as though illumined by the fire of youth.

He had chosen for his text the words of the seventh psalm: "My defense is of God, which saveth the upright in heart."

I had intended to watch sharply, to endeavor to detect some reference to my own sermon, as I could well imagine that the pastor's wife had told her husband about it, and not in the most favorable way. But after the first few sentences all my vain self-consciousness vanished, and even my renowned powers of theological criticism, which I had so often valiantly tested at the university. True, there was no trace of any controversial disposition in the low words from those withered lips, which, however, were so distinct that not one remained unheard. The old man opened his reverent heart to all who had ears to listen, as a father speaks to the children who cluster around his knees. I have forgotten what he said. It was anything but what is termed an intellectual discourse. But the tone of his voice has rung in my ears all my life, as though I had heard it only yesterday.

I can remember but one thing: that he referred to the calamity of the preceding year, when floods and stunted harvests had affected the village; but all this trouble had not been able to depress pious hearts, only those who did not have God for their shield, and what a precious thing this shield was, and many more simple, earnest words of this sort, all appealing with gentle power to every heart, because they did not merely spring from the lips, but were felt in the depths of the soul.

The dull peasants listened so breathlessly that the fall of a leaf might have been heard in the church. I glanced once at the occupants of the red pew. The baron had closed his eyes and bowed his handsome head on his breast--in contrition, as I first thought. Then I perceived, by the strange nodding, as it drooped lower, that he was indulging in a little nap. His wife's face, on the contrary, was raised, and she did not avert her eyes from the venerable bald head and silver locks of the speaker. As Mademoiselle Suzon was of a different faith, it could hardly be considered a crime that she was constantly glancing here and there over the congregation.

When the sermon was over, and the people were just preparing to sing the last two verses of that day's hymn, I hastily signed to the schoolmaster to let me take his seat at the organ, and at first modestly played the accompaniment; afterward, however, I put forth all my skill, not from the vain desire to make myself talked about, but an earnest longing to pour forth in music all the emotions of my overflowing heart.

A magnificent motet by Graun had been constantly echoing in my ears during the sermon, a harmony as full of the faith of childhood and the gentleness of age as the nature of the old clergyman in the pulpit. I now began to play it with a quiet fervor and triumphant devotion which finally made the tears gush from my own eyes. At the same time the image of the maiden whom I revered rose before my mind, and, as I had so long been unable to communicate with her in words, it was a pleasure to think: She is hearing you play, and, as her own being is instinct with music, you will approach her across all the gulfs that yawn between you, and she must begin to think better of you!

When I at last closed with a bit of improvisation, and rose, glowing with excitement, I saw close behind me the whole flock of children from both villages, who had stolen softly up from below and gathered around with shy reverence, as if I were a magician. But I sought only one pair of eyes, and enjoyed the first happy moment for several days. The Canoness was standing beside the old peasant woman, gazing rapturously into vacancy, as though still under the thrall of the notes she had just heard. As I passed with a slight bow, she only moved her blonde lashes a little, while her lips parted in a serene smile. No enthusiastic eulogy could have rewarded me more highly.

* * * * *

I could scarcely wait to meet her again at dinner. I fully expected that she would at last break her cold silence, and question me about what I had played, my musical studies and tastes. But nothing of the sort occurred. Nay, while all the others were praising and admiring me, and the Frenchwoman, with studied graciousness, kept her black eyes on my face, and laid a large piece of roast goose on my plate with her own hands, Fraeulein Luise looked at me so absently and indifferently that I could not help secretly brooding over this mystery.

I was also annoyed because the baron, who had made no allusion to my sermon, delivered a long speech about my organ-music, from which I perceived that he had not taken the slightest interest in it, and was merely patching together, with a defective memory, certain phrases about the value of music to religious consciousness and the sin of considering the old church-hymns antiquated.

But Uncle Joachim vouchsafed me for the first time a brief conversation in a low tone, which, however, I scarcely regarded as an honor. I thought him an insignificant, frivolous old nobleman; besides, he had not been to church at all.

I longed to learn whether I owed the happy moment after my playing to self-delusion, or what was the reason I had again fallen into disfavor with the Canoness. So, soon after dinner, I went into the park and sauntered about within a short distance of the summer-house, holding in my hand a book, at which I gazed intently without reading a line.

My friend Liborius had told me that Fraeulein Luise drank coffee every Sunday afternoon with her Uncle Joachim, who made it himself in his little pot, and ordered the cakes from the town at the next station. They always enjoyed it very much, and could often be heard talking and laughing loudly together.

I had seen her go there that day, after giving a Sunday morsel to the sick peacock and stroking its back as it came up to her, screaming and fluttering. I did not understand how she could love the spiteful, disagreeable bird, any more than I could comprehend what attracted her to her godless uncle, with his sarcastic smile, whom I so greatly envied on account of her preference. I waited at my post an hour and a half in a very irritated mood, and was just in the act of turning away, and driving the arrogant enchantress out of my thoughts, when the door of the summer-house opened and she herself appeared, evidently in the gayest humor.

But, as she caught sight of me, a shadow instantly flitted over her face, and only a faint smile of superiority lingered on her lips.

"You are waiting for me, Herr Weissbrod," she said, carelessly, advancing directly to me. "You want a compliment for your church concert, do you not? Well, you played very finely."

I was so bewildered by this address, and still more by the glance with which she seemed to illumine my inmost heart, and read my most secret thoughts, that at first I could only stammer a few unmeaning words. She seemed to pity my awkwardness.

"Yes," she repeated, "you really played very finely. Where did you learn? Our organ sounds well, doesn't it? Do you play on the piano too?"

I answered that I had taken lessons at college, but had never made much progress on the piano, which required greater dexterity. Besides, there were no such beautiful, solemn melodies for the piano as for the organ.

She again looked at me with so strange an expression that I lowered my eyes.

"Do you love music only when it is solemn?" she asked, and turned away as if to leave me. But I was determined to speak freely and compel her to confess her grudge against me.

"I thought you would be of the same opinion on this point," I answered, hastily. "At least I have only heard you sing slow, solemn melodies."

"Me? Oh, yes! You are my neighbor in the tower." She smiled faintly, but instantly grew grave again. "Well, would you like to know why I sing nothing else? Because I have a heavy voice that does not suit gay airs. Yet 'Bloom, dear Violet,' and 'When I on my Faded Cheek,' or anything still more light and cheerful, can touch the feelings as much as the most devout choral, if it only comes from a merry heart and a pure voice. True, we can not win artistic renown or be considered specially pious by singing such things; though I think God has the same pleasure in the chirp of the cricket as in the trills of the nightingale."

"You wound me, Fraeulein," I answered, crimson with emotion. "You do me great injustice if you believe that what I do or leave undone is for the sake of external effect. Who gave you so bad an opinion of me?"

She stopped and looked at me again, not into my eyes, but at my hair, whose parting had meanwhile daily moved farther to the left.

"Do you really care to know what I think of you? Well, I believe you vain and weak, a man who no longer reflects upon anything because he imagines he has made himself familiar, once for all, with all the enigmas of life, though he does not yet know even the first word of them. I don't blame you, for I know that this is the case with most of those who have pursued your path. But, as I have different ideas of the one thing needful, we certainly have nothing to share with each other."

I felt a keen pang at these words, but was resolved at any cost to know more, to know everything.

"And what is your idea of the one thing needful?" I asked, trembling with emotion. "You say such hard things to me. Are you perfectly sure that you have a right to do so? Are you certain that you are yourself in possession of the right knowledge?"

"Oh, no," she replied, and her voice suddenly sounded strangely low and earnest, as if she were speaking only to herself; "but I know that I seek truth and allow myself to be led astray by no external delusion, peril, or reward. No more can be required of any one, but no human being should demand less from himself. I don't know why I am saying this to you; I see by your puzzled face that it is a language wholly unfamiliar. Well, I have neither taste nor talent for converting any one. I shall thank God if I can conquer myself."

She bent over a bed to straighten a young cabbage-plant that had just been set out and was half trodden down.

"Fraeulein," I said, once more fully conscious of my ecclesiastical dignity, "has not God himself pointed out to us the way in which we must seek him? And is it not boastful to disdain this allotted way and seek a side-path, merely in order to be able to say to ourselves that we do not follow the high-road?"

She straightened herself, and flashed a glance at me from her dark eyes, which she always closed a little when angry.

"Boastful!" she answered. "If food that neither satisfies nor nourishes is offered, and I can break from some bough fruit that suits me better! Boastful, because I do not wish to starve! That is only another of those speeches learned by rote. You do not even suspect how much you yourself suffer from arrogance." Then, after a pause, during which I persistently asked myself, "Good Heavens! what am I to do? how shall I say anything that does not displease her?" she added:

"I will tell you why the high-road is so detestable to me: because I can not bear to hear strangers chatter thoughtlessly about things I love. If I revere any human being, it always seems to me like a desecration to hear him approved and praised by others who do not know him so well; how much more when I hear all sorts of things said about my Creator, things which distort the image of him I cherish in my heart! I suddenly turn as cold as ice, and feel as much oppressed as if he were taken from me, and strangers were pressing between us. Whoever really loves God keeps that love secretly, does not repeat others' protestations of affection, nor use worn-out forms of speech already employed a thousand times. It seems to me like having a love-letter copied from a letter-writer. You know the passage in the Bible that says we must go to our closets and shut the door. Yet you come forward publicly and preach your petty human wisdom, as if you were thereby doing God a special favor. If you had a wife, would you not be ashamed to plant yourself in the village street and protest that she was a paragon of her sex?"

"Oh," I said, "how can you make such a comparison! God belongs to no one person alone."

"Do you really believe so? I think, on the contrary, that God belongs to every human being alone. He dwells in a special way in each human soul, and whoever does not feel this has not received him into his heart at all."

"Then you object to all public worship, Fraeulein?"

"No, only that which prevents our coming to ourselves and God within us. Did you not hear how our old pastor preached to-day? How completely he forgot that he was in a crowded church, and poured out his heart as if he were alone with his Creator! So every one had time to do the same, and also approach God in his own soul. The rest of the old man's discourse was like a father talking to his children. Even if they did not all agree with him, they heard him speak from his inmost heart, and were glad to have him still among them and see his venerable white hair and his gentle eyes."

"Then it surely is not my fault if I can not assume the right paternal tone, since my hair is not yet white," I answered, trying to jest.

"Not your fault," she replied, "but the fault of those who believe young people capable of taking charge of a parish. Well, it is all the same to me."

"Because you will not go to church again when I preach? Oh, Fraeulein, try once more! Don't give me up too quickly! What you have said has made a deeper impression upon me than you suppose. Perhaps we may yet understand each other better than you now believe."

She reflected an instant, and then said: "Very well, if you lay stress upon it, I will try once more. At the worst, I can think of something else. Farewell!"

She left me, and walked with her swift, even steps to the castle.

* * * * *

I can not describe the state of mind in which I spent the days until the following Sunday.

When a house, in which a man has lived safely and happily for years, suddenly falls under the shock of an earthquake, and he escapes, at great peril, with bruised head and half-broken limbs into the open air, his feelings may be somewhat akin to mine.

At first, it is true, the old Adam stirred and tried to reconstruct the ruined edifice and persuade me that it might be made habitable again. But I soon felt that the dust floating around it oppressed my breathing more and more, and the old walls shook at the slightest motion. Only one little room had escaped the universal destruction--the one I was to enter and shut the door behind me to be alone with my Creator and my love for him.

But I am not writing the confessions of my own soul and my incarnation, but the account of a far better and more interesting human being. So I will be brief.

My anxiety lest the old pastor should be able to fill his pulpit again the following Sunday, for which I did not reproach myself at all, though it showed little love for my neighbor, had been superfluous. His disease again confined him to the arm-chair by the window. But he talked long and cordially with me, and, when on my departure he embraced me, I thought I perceived that he was better satisfied with my conversation this time than during our first interview. With his wife, however, I had found no special favor as yet.

When the Sunday had come and I heard the bells ring and the hymn was sung, I was obliged to drink a glass of the wine kept in the vestry for the communion service, in order to control the wholly unprecedented weakness that assailed me. My knees trembled as if I were about to plead my own cause before a jury, in a case where my life was at stake. Yet there were only two judges in the church whose verdict I valued--my own consciousness, and the grave face beside Mother Lieschen in the last pew.

To be brief, the culprit was absolved.

I had chosen the text, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me!"

And when I began to speak it was not long ere I forgot everything around and was entirely alone in the church with one whom hitherto I had only known afar off, but who now for the first time drew near me, clasped my cold, damp hand, and gazed into my eyes with indescribable goodness, gentleness, and majesty, so that I clung fervently to him and poured forth all the trouble of my bewildered soul till he raised and blessed me.

My heart was so melted by the feeling of having at last beheld my God that I did not even glance at the pew under the organ-loft. But, in a pause which I was compelled to make to control my emotion, I perceived two things that satisfied me that I had found the right words: the pastor's wife was gazing affectionately at me with motherly love, as if she were listening to her own son, and the baron had again let his chin sink on his breast and was sleeping the sleep of the just, as soundly and sweetly as I had seen him on the previous Sunday during the old pastor's sermon.

* * * * *

I could scarcely wait for dinner. I did not expect a kind word from any of the others, but I firmly believed that she would grant me a friendly look.

But, as I entered the dining-room, my first glance fell on the cold, arrogant face of Cousin Kasimir, and all my pleasure was spoiled.

True, my heart grew warm again. For the first time Uncle Joachim was not the only one who pressed my hand. Fraeulein Luise also extended hers, which was neither small nor especially white, but, when I cordially clasped and pressed it, I felt a joy akin to that of the first man when the Creator stretched out his hand and bade him rise and look heavenward.

It was but a brief happiness; I perceived, by the Canoness's stern eyes and compressed lips, that she was no longer thinking of me and my sermon, but of something repulsive and hopeless. Besides, she did not whisper some confidential remark to her neighbor now and then, as usual, and a leaden cloud of discomfort rested upon the whole company at table.

Cousin Kasimir alone seemed to be in an unusually cheerful mood, which, however, did not appear quite natural, and chattered continually, telling hunting stories, news from Berlin, and occasionally commencing bits of gossip, which the baron hastened to interrupt on the children's account.

He was very handsomely dressed, wore a small bouquet of violets in his new dark-blue coat, and had carefully trimmed his somewhat thin fair hair and small mustache.

As soon as we rose from the table, the Canoness was retiring as usual, but her uncle said: "Come to my room, Luise." She looked at him with a steady, almost defiant glance, then stooped to kiss her aunt's cheek and followed him.

Cousin Kasimir had approached Mademoiselle Suzon, to whom he constantly paid compliments in French, without receiving any special encouragement. My pupil had seized his sister's hand and hurried off to show her a new gun Cousin Kasimir had brought him. The old baroness sat in her high-backed chair, gazing at the beautiful blue sky as if her thoughts were far away. I took my leave of her, which roused her from her abstraction, and she gave me her little wrinkled hand, looked at me with her sad, gentle eyes, and said: "You edified me greatly to-day, Herr Candidate. God bless you for it."