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Wilibald Pirckheimer bent toward the ear of his young friend and
companion in office, whispering:
"The lovely wife at home whom you toiled so hard to win, might, I
know, rest quietly, secure in the possession of all the charms of foam-
born Aphrodite, yet I warn you. Whoever is as sure of himself as you
cares little for the opinion of others. And yet we stand high, friend
Lienhard, and therefore are seen by all; but the old Argus who watches
for his neighbour's faults has a hundred sharp eyes, while among the gods
three are blind--Justice, Happiness, and Love. Besides, you flung gold
to yonder worthless rabble. I would rather have given it to the
travelling musicians. They, like us humanists, are allied to the Muses
and, moreover, are harmless, happy folk."
Lienhard Groland listened till his older friend had finished. Then,
after thanking him for his well-meant counsel, he answered, turning to
the others also:
"In better days rope-dancing was the profession of yonder poor, coughing
creature. Now, after a severe accident, she is dragging herself through
life on one foot. I once knew her, for I succeeded in saving her from
terrible disgrace."
"And," replied Wilibald Pirckheimer, "we would rather show kindness a
second and a third time to any one on whom we have be stowed a favour
than to render it once to a person from whom we have received one. This
is my own experience. But the wise man must guard against nothing more
carefully than to exceed moderation in his charity. How easily, when
Caius sees Cnejus lavish gold where silver or copper would serve, he
thinks of Martial's apt words: 'Who gives great gifts, expects great
gifts again.'--[Martial, Epigram 5, 59, 3.]--Do not misunderstand me.
What could yonder poor thing bestow that would please even a groom? But
the eyes of suspicion scan even the past. I have often seen you open
your purse, friend Lienhard, and this is right. Whoever hath ought to
give, and my dead mother used to say that: 'No one ever became a beggar
by giving at the proper time.'"
"And life is gladdened by what one gives to another," remarked Conrad
Peutinger, the learned Augsburg city clerk, who valued his Padua title of
doctor more than that of an imperial councillor. "It applies to all
departments. Don't allow yourself to regret your generosity, friend
Lienhard. 'Nothing becomes man better than the pleasure of giving,' says
Terentius.--[Terenz. Ad. 360]--Who is more liberal than the destiny
which adorns the apple tree that is to bear a hundred fruits, with ten
thousand blossoms to please our eyes ere it satisfies our appetite?"
"To you, if to any one, it gives daily proof of liberality in both
learning and the affairs of life," Herr Wilibald assented.
"If you will substitute 'God, our Lord,' for 'destiny,' I agree with
you," observed the Abbot of St. AEgidius in Nuremberg.
The portly old prelate nodded cordially to Dr. Peutinger as he spoke.
The warm, human love with which he devoted himself to the care of souls
in his great parish consumed the lion's share of his time and strength.
He spent only his leisure hours in the study of the ancient writers, in
whom he found pleasure, and rejoiced in the work of the humanists without
sharing their opinions.
"Yes, my dear Doctor," he continued in his deep voice, in a tone of the
most earnest conviction, "if envy were ever pardonable, he who presumed
to feel it toward you might most speedily hope to find forgiveness.
There is no physical or mental gift with which the Lord has not blessed
you, and to fill the measure to overflowing, he permitted you to win a
beautiful and virtuous wife of noble lineage."
"And allowed glorious daughters to grow up in your famous home," cried
little Dr. Eberbach, waving his wineglass enthusiastically. "Who has not
heard of Juliane Peutinger, the youngest of humanists, but no longer one
of the least eminent, who, when a child only four years old, addressed
the Emperor Maximilian in excellent Latin. But when, as in the child
Juliane, the wings of the intellect move so powerfully and so
prematurely, who would not think of the words of the superb Ovid: 'The
human mind gains victories more surely than lances and arrows.'"
But, ere he had finished the verse which, like many another Latin one,
he mingled with his German words, he noticed Lienhard Groland eagerly
motioning to him to stop. The latter knew only too well what had not yet
reached the ears of Eberbach in Vienna. The marvellous child, whose
precocious learning he had just extolled as a noble gift of Providence to
the father, was no longer among the living. Her bright eyes had closed
ere she reached maidenhood.
Dr. Eberbach, in painful embarrassment, tried to apologize for his
heedlessness, but the Augsburg city clerk, with a friendly gesture,
endeavoured to soothe his young fellow-scholar.
"It brought the true nature of happiness very vividly before all our
eyes," he remarked with a faint sigh. "In itself it is not lasting. A
second piece of good fortune is needed to maintain the first. Mine was
indeed great and beautiful enough. But we will let the dead rest. What
more have you heard concerning the first books of the Annales of Tacitus,
said to have been discovered in the Corvey monastery? If the report
should be verified----"
Here Eberbach, delighted to find an opportunity to afford the honoured
man whom he had unwittingly grieved a little pleasure, eagerly
interrupted. Hurriedly thrusting his hand into the breast of his black
doublet, he drew forth several small sheets on which he had succeeded in
copying the beginning of the precious new manuscript, and handed them to
Peutinger, who, with ardent zeal, instantly became absorbed in the almost
illegible characters of his young comrade in learning. Wilibald
Pirckheimer and Lienhard Groland also frequently forgot the fresh salmon
and young partridges, which were served in succession, to share this
brilliant novelty. The Abbot of St. AEgidius, too, showed his pleasure
in the fortunate discovery, and did not grow quieter until the
conversation turned upon the polemical writing which Reuchlin had just
finished. It had recently appeared in Frankfort under the title: The Eye
Mirror, and assailed with crushing severity those who blamed him for
opposing the proposal to destroy the books of the Jews.
"What in the world do we care about the writings of the Hebrews?" the
deep bass voice of Hans von Obernitz here interrupted the conversation.
"A new Latin manuscript--that I value! But has this noble fragment of
Tacitus created half as much stir as this miserable dispute?"
"There is more at stake," said Lienhard Groland positively. "The Jewish
writings merely serve as a pretext for the Cologne inquisitors to attack
the great Reuchlin. He, the most profound and keenest student of the
noble Greek tongue, who also forced the venerable language in which the
Old Testament speaks to discourse to us Germans--"
"The Hebrew!" cried Hans von Obernitz impatiently, passing his napkin
over his thick moustache; "what do we want of it? How can a sagacious
man plunge into such annoyances on its account?"
"Because the excess of liberty which you gentlemen grant to the human
intellect blinds him," observed the abbot. "His learning would throw the
doors wide open to heresy. The Scriptures are true. On them Tungern and
Kollin, whom you mention, rely. In the original Hebrew text they will be
given up to every one who wishes to seek an interpretation----"
"Then a new bridge will be built for truth," declared the little
Thuringian with flashing eyes.
"The Cologne theologians hold a different opinion," replied the abbot.
"Because the Grand Inquisitor and his followers--Tungern, Kollin, and
whatever the rest may be called--are concerned about some thing very
different from the noblest daughter of Heaven," said Lienhard Groland,
and the other gentlemen assented. "You yourself, my lord abbot, admitted
to me on the ride here that it angered you, too, to see the Cologne
Dominicans pursue the noble scholar 'with such fierce hatred and bitter
stings.'"--[Virgil, Aeneid, xi. 837.]
"Because conflict between Christians always gives me pain," replied the
abbot.
But here Dr. Eberbach impetuously broke in upon the conversation:
"For the sake of a fair woman Ilion suffered unspeakable tortures.
But to us a single song of Homer is worth more than all these Hebrew
writings. And yet a Trojan war of the intellect has been kindled
concerning them. Here freedom of investigation, yonder with Hoogstraten
and Tungern, fettering of the mind. Among us, the ardent yearning to
hold aloft the new light which the revival of learning is kindling,
yonder superior force is struggling to extinguish it. Here the rule of
the thinking mind, in whose scales reason and counter-argument decide the
matter; among the Cologne people it is the Grand Inquisitor's jailers,
chains, dungeons, and the stake."
"They will not go so far," replied the abbot soothingly. "True, both the
front and the back stairs are open to the Dominicans in Rome."
"Yet where should humanism find more zealous friends than in that very
place, among the heads of the Church?" asked Dr. Peutinger. "From the
Tiber, I hope----"
Here he paused, for the new guest who had just entered the room attracted
his attention also. The landlord of The Blue Pike respectfully preceded
him and ushered him directly to the Nuremberg party, while he requested
the Dominican monks who accompanied him to wait.
The late arrival was Prof. Arnold von Tungern, dean of the theological
faculty at the University of Cologne. This gentleman had just been
mentioned with the greatest aversion at the table he was now approaching,
and his arrogant manner did little to lessen it.
Nevertheless, his position compelled the Nuremberg dignitaries to invite
him to share their meal, which was now drawing to a close. The Cologne
theologian accepted the courtesy with a patronizing gesture, as if it
were a matter of course. Nay, after he had taken his seat, he ordered
the landlord, as if he were the master, to see that this and that thing
in the kitchen was not forgotten.
Unwelcome as his presence doubtless was to his table companions, as
sympathizers with Reuchlin and other innovators, well as he doubtless
remembered their scornful attacks upon his Latin--he was a man to
maintain his place. So, with boastful self-conceit, allowing no one else
an opportunity to speak, he at once began to complain of the fatigues of
the journey and to mention, with tiresome detail, the eminent persons
whom he had met and who had treated him like a valued friend. The vein
on the little doctor's high forehead swelled with wrath as he listened to
this boastful chatter, which did not cease until the first dish was
served. To brave him, Eberbach turned the conversation to humanism, its
redeeming power over minds, and its despicable foes. His scornful jests
buzzed around his enemy like a swarm of gnats; but Arnold von Tungern
pretended not to hear them. Only now and then a tremor of the mouth, as
he slowly chewed his food, or a slight raising of the eye-brows, betrayed
that one shaft or another had not wholly missed its mark.
The older gentlemen had sometimes interrupted the Thuringian, to try to
change the conversation, but always in vain, and the guest from Cologne
vouchsafed them only curt, dry answers.
Not until a pause occurred between two courses did von Tungern alter his
manner. Then, like an inquisitor who has succeeded in convicting the
person accused, he leaned back in his chair with a satisfied, long-drawn
"So-o," wiped his moist chin, and began:
"You have showed me your state of mind plainly enough, my young Herr
Doctor. Your name is Eberbach, if I am not mistaken. We will remember
it at a fitting opportunity. But, pugnaciously as your loud voice
summons to the strife, it will never destroy the sacred and venerable
things which are worthy to endure. Thanks to the foundation of rock
which supports them, and the watchfulness of their defenders, they will
stand firmer than the walls of Jericho, whose fate you doubtless wish to
bestow upon them. But you, my valued friends"--here he turned to the
envoys--"who stand at the head of communities whose greatness is founded
upon their ancient order and system, beware of opening your ears and your
gates to the siren song and fierce outcries of the innovators and
agitators."
"Thanks for the counsel," replied Wilibald Pirckheimer, with repellent
coldness; but Arnold von Tungern pretended to consider the humanist's
reply an assent, and, nodding approvingly, continued:
"How could you help exclaiming, with us and the pagan Ovid, 'We praise
the ancients!' And this is merely saying that what time has tested and
made venerable is the best."--[Ovid. Fast., 1, 225.]
Here Doctor Peutinger tried to interrupt him, but the other cut him short
with an arrogant wave of the hand, and in an instructive tone began
again:
"The honourable Council of Nuremberg--so I am informed--set a
praiseworthy example several years ago. There was a youthful member of
one of your patrician families--an Ebner, I believe, or a Stromer or
Tucher. He had imbibed in Padua mistaken ideas which, unhappily, are
held in high esteem by many from whom we should expect more discernment.
So it chanced that when he returned home he ventured to contract a formal
betrothal with an honourable maiden of noble lineage, against the
explicit desire of her distinguished parents. The rebellious youth was
therefore summoned before a court of justice, and, on account of his
reckless offence and wanton violation of custom and law, banished from
the city and sentenced to pay a fine----"
"A punishment which I endured calmly, Herr Professor," interrupted
Lienhard Groland, "for I myself was that 'rebellious youth.' Besides,
it was by no means the teachings of humanism which led me to an act that
you, learned sir, doubtless regard with sterner eyes than the Christian
charity which your clerical garb made me expect would permit."
These words fell, with the winning earnestness peculiar to him, from the
lips of the young man who, at a time when he cared for no other woman
than his new-made bride, had seen in the poor, endangered rope-dancer a
human being worthy of aid. Only his fiery dark eyes met the professor's
sternly enough.
The latter was still seeking a fitting reply, when the folding doors of
the room were thrown wide open, and a belated party of travellers
entered. They came opportunely, for they afforded a timely excuse to
withhold an answer without attracting notice; yet at the head of the new
guests of The Blue Pike was his Cologne colleague Conrad Kollin, who was
followed, as he himself had been, by a number of Dominican friars.
Tungern, of course, went to greet him, and this made it easy to part from
his table companions in a manner that aroused no comment; for while
Kollin was surrounded and respectfully welcomed by the Dominican friars
and many other travellers, the humanists left the house.
CHAPTER III.
Dietel did not lose sight of the envoys. After whispering together a
short time they had risen and gone out. At the door the Abbot of St.
AEgidius left them to greet Professor Kollin, and, with the easy kindness
characteristic of him, to say that the room had become too warm for the
other gentlemen. They presented their compliments to the distinguished
citizen of Cologne, and placed their table at the service of the
newcomer.
Dietel's sharp ears had enabled him to catch these words; but then he was
obliged to move again, a table had to be set outside the house for the
Nuremberg travellers and their companions, and jugs of wine must be
filled for them.
Then he was called back to the taproom. While the landlord of The Pike
was serving a fresh meal to Professor Kollin at the table vacated by the
Nuremberg dignitaries, and Arnold von Tungern was emptying the full vials
of his wrath upon the little doctor and the whole body of humanists, the
Nuremberg travellers and their guests were now conversing freely, as if
relieved from a nightmare, upon the topics which most deeply interested
them.
Dietel would far rather have served the Cologne theologians, whom he
regarded as the appointed defenders of the true faith, than the
insignificant folk at the other tables who had just finished their meal.
How unmannerly their behaviour was! Better wine had been served before
dessert, and they now shouted and sang so loudly and so out of tune
that the air played by the strolling musicians could scarcely be
distinguished. Many a table, too, groaned under blows from the clinched
fist of some excited reveller. Every one seemed animated by a single
desire-to drink again and again.
Now the last pieces of bread and the cloths were removed from the tables.
The carousers no longer needed Dietel. He could leave the task of
filling the jugs to his young assistants.
What were the envoys outside doing? They were well off. In here the
atmosphere was stifling from the fumes emanating from the throng of
people, the wine, and the food. It seemed to draw all the flies from far
and near. Whence did they come? They seemed to have increased by
thousands since the early morning, when the room was empty. The outside
air appeared delightful to breathe. He longed to fill his lungs again
with the pure wind of heaven, and at the same time catch a few words of
the conversation between the envoys to the Reichstag.
So Dietel hobbled to the open window, where the strollers were resting.
Cyriax was lying on the floor asleep, with the brandy bottle in his arms.
Two of his companions, with their mouths wide open, were snoring at his
side. Raban, who begged for blood-money, was counting the copper coins
which he had received. Red-haired Gitta was sewing another patch of
cloth upon her rough husband's already well-mended jerkin by the dim
light of a small lamp, into which she had put some fat and a bit of rag
for a wick. It was difficult to thread the needle. Had it not been for
the yellow blaze of the pitchpans fastened to the wall with iron clamps,
which had already been burning an hour, she could scarcely have
succeeded.
"Make room there," the waiter called to the vagrants, giving the sleeping
Jungel a push with his club foot. The latter grasped his crutch, as he
had formerly seized the sword he carried as a foot soldier ere he lost
his leg before Padua. Then, with a Spanish oath learned in the
Netherlands, he turned over, still half asleep, on his side. So Dietel
found room, and, after vainly looking for Kuni among the others, gazed
out at the starlit sky.
Yonder, in front of the house, beside the tall oleanders which grew in
wine casks cut in halves instead of in tubs, the learned and aristocratic
gentlemen sat around the table with outstretched heads, examining by the
light of the torches the pages which Dr. Eberbach drew forth, one after
another, from the inexhaustible folds of the front of his black robe.
Dietel, the schoolmaster's son, who had once sat on the bench with the
pupils of the Latin class, pricked up his cars; he heard foreign words
which interested him like echoes of memories of his childhood. He did
not understand them, yet he liked to listen, for they made him think of
his dead father. He had always meant kindly, but he had been a morose,
deeply embittered man. How pitilessly he had flogged him and the other
boys with hazel rods. And he would have been still harsher and sterner
but for his mother's intercession.
A pleasant smile hovered around his lips as he remembered her. Instead
of continuing to listen to the Greek sentences which Herr Wilibald
Pirckheimer was reading aloud to the others, he could not help thinking
of the pious, gentle little woman who, with her cheerful kindness, so
well understood how to comfort and to sustain courage. She never railed
or scolded; at the utmost she only wiped her eyes with her apron when the
farmers of his little native town in Hesse sent to the schoolmaster, for
the school tax, grain too bad for bread, hay too sour for the three
goats, and half-starved fowls.
He thoughtfully patted the plump abdomen which, thanks to the fleshpots
of The Blue Pike, had grown so rotund in his fifteen years of service.
"It pays better to provide for people's bodies than for their brains," he
said to himself. "The Nuremberg and Augsburg gentlemen outside are rich
folk's children. For them learning is only the raisins, almonds, and
citron in the cake; knowledge agrees with them better than it did with my
father. He was the ninth child of respectable stocking weavers, but, as
the pastor perceived that he was gifted with special ability, his parents
took a portion of their savings to make him a scholar. The tuition fee
and the boy were both confided to a Beanus--that is, an older pupil, who
asserted that he understood Latin--in order that he might look after the
inexperienced little fellow and help him out of school as well as in.
But, instead of using for his protigee the florins intrusted to him, the
Beanus shamefully squandered the money saved for a beloved child by so
many sacrifices. While he feasted on roast meat and wine, the little boy
placed in his charge went hungry." Whenever, in after years, the old man
described this time of suffering, his son listened with clinched fists,
and when Dietel saw a Beanus at The Blue Pike snatch the best pieces from
the child in his care, he interfered in his behalf sternly enough. Nay,
he probably brought to him from the kitchen, on his own account, a piece
of roast meat or a sausage. Many of the names which fell from the moist
lips of the gentlemen outside--Lucian and Virgil, Ovid and Seneca, Homer
and Plato--were perfectly familiar to him. The words the little doctor
was reading must belong to their writings. How attentively the others
listened! Had not Dietel run away from the monks' school at Fulda he,
too, might have enjoyed the witticisms of these sages, or even been
permitted to sit at the same table with the great lights of the Church
from Cologne.
Now it was all over with studying.
And yet--it could not be so very serious a matter, for Doctor Eberbach
had just read something aloud at which the young Nuremberg ambassador,
Lienhard Groland, could not help laughing heartily. It seemed to amuse
the others wonderfully, too, and even caused the astute Dr. Peutinger to
strike his clinched fist upon the table with the exclamation, "A devil of
a fellow!" and Wilibald Pirckheimer to assent eagerly, praising Hutten's
ardent love for his native land and courage in battling for its
elevation; but this Hutten whom he so lauded was the ill-advised scion of
the knightly race that occupied Castle Steckelberg in his Hessian home,
whom he knew well. The state of his purse was evident from the fact that
the landlord of The Pike had once been obliged to detain him because he
could not pay the bill--though it was by no means large--in any other
coin than merry tales.
But even the best joke of the witty knight would have failed to produce
its effect on the listening waiter just now; for the gentlemen outside
were again discussing the Reuchlin controversy, and in doing so uttered
such odious words about the Cologne theologians, whom Dietel knew as
godly gentlemen who consumed an ample supply of food, that he grew hot
and cold by turns. He was a good man who would not hurt a fly. Yet,
when he heard things and opinions which his mother had taught him to hold
sacred assailed, he could become as angry as a savage brute. The little
impious blasphemer Eberbach, especially, he would have been more than
ready to lash with the best hazel rod which he had ever cut for his dead
father. But honest anger affords a certain degree of enjoyment, so it
was anything rather than agreeable to him to be called away.
The feather curler and his table companions wanted Kitzing wine, but it
was in the cellar, and a trip there would have detained him too long from
his post of listener. So he turned angrily back into the room, and told
the business men that princes, bishops, and counts were satisfied with
the table wine of The Blue Pike, which had been already served to them,
and the sceptre and crozier were of more importance than their twisted
feathers. "Those are not the wisest people," he added sagely, "who
despise what is good to try to get better. So stick to the excellent
Blue Pike wine and say no more about it!"
Without waiting for an answer from the astonished guests, he limped back
to his window to resume his listening. The conversation, however, had
already taken a new turn, for Dr. Peutinger was describing the Roman
monument which he had had put up in the courtyard of his Augsburg house,
but, as this interested Dietel very little, he soon turned his attention
to the high road, whence a belated guest might still come to The Blue
Pike.
The landlady's little kitchen garden lay between it and the river Main,
and there--no, it was no deception--there, behind the low hawthorn hedge,
a human figure was moving.
One of the vagabonds had certainly slipped into the garden to steal fruit
or vegetables, or even honey from the bee hives. An unprecedented
offence! Dietel's blood boiled, for the property of The Blue Pike was
as dear to him as his own.
With prompt decision he went through the entry into the yard, where he
meant to unchain the butcher's dog to help him chase the abominable
robber. But some time was to elapse ere he could execute this
praiseworthy intention; for before he could cross the threshold the
landlord of The Pike appeared, berated him, and ordered him to be more
civil in the performance of his duties. The words were intended less for
the waiter than for the feather dealer and his friends.
The latter had complained of Dietel to the landlord of The Pike, and,
after he had received a reproof, they punished him for his rudeness by
ordering him to fetch one jug of wine from the cellar after another. At
last, when, with many a malediction, he had brought up the fifth, his
tormentors released him, but then the best time was lost. Nevertheless
he continued the pursuit and entered the little garden with the dog, but
the thief had fled.
After assuring himself of this fact he stood still, rubbing his narrow
forehead with the tips of his fingers.
The rogue was most probably one of the vagrants, and like a flash it
entered his mind that the ropedancer, Kuni, who in her prosperous days,
instead of eating meat and vegetables, preferred to satisfy her appetite
with fruits and sweet dainties, might be the culprit. Besides, when he
had looked around among the guests just before, she was no longer with
the other vagabonds.
Certain of having found the right trail, he instantly went to the window
below which the strollers lay, thrust his head into the room from the
outside, and waked the wife of the tongueless swearer. She had fallen
asleep on the floor with the sewing in her hand. The terror with which
she started up at his call bore no favourable testimony to her good
conscience, but she had already recovered her bold unconcern when he
imperiously demanded to know what had become of lame Kuni.
"Ask the other travellers--the soldiers, the musicians, the monks, for
aught I care," was the scornful, irritating answer. But when Dietel
angrily forbade such insolent mockery, she cried jeeringly:
"Do you think men don't care for her because she has lost her foot and
has that little cough? You ought to know better.
"Master Dieter has a sweetheart for every finger, though the lower part
of his own body isn't quite as handsome as it might be."
"On account of my foot?" the waiter answered spitefully. "You'll soon
find that it knows how to chase. Besides, the Nuremberg city soldiers
will help me in the search. If you don't tell me at once where the girl
went--by St. Eoban, my patron----"
Here red-haired Gitta interrupted him in a totally different tone; she
and her companions had nothing good to expect from the city soldiers.
In a very humble manner she protested that Kuni was an extraordinarily
charitable creature. In a cart standing in the meadow by the highroad
lay the widow of a beggar, Nickel; whom the peasants had hung on account
of many a swindling trick. A goose and some chickens had strayed off to
his premises. The woman had just given birth to twins when Nickel was
hung, and she was now in a violent fever, with frequent attacks of
convulsions, and yet had to nurse the infants. The landlady of The Pike
had sent her some broth and a little milk for the children. As for Kuni,
she had gone to carry some linen from her own scanty store to the two
babies, who were as naked as little frogs. He would find her with the
sick mother.
All this flowed from Gitta's lips with so much confidence that Dietel,
whose heart was easily touched by such a deed of charity, though he by no
means put full confidence in her, allowed himself to be induced to let
the city soldiers alone for the present and test the truth of her strange
statement himself.
So he prepared to go in search of the cart, but the landlord of The Pike
met him at the door, and, angrily asking what ailed him that day, ordered
him to fetch the Erbach, more of which was wanted inside. Dietel went
down into the cellar again, but this time he was not to leave it so
speedily, for the apprentice of a Nuremberg master shoemaker, whose
employer was going to the Frankfort fair with his goods, and who made
common cause with the feather dealer, stole after Dietel, and of his own
volition, for his own pleasure, locked him in. The good Kitzing wine had
strengthened his courage. Besides, experience taught him that an offence
would be more easily pardoned the more his master himself disliked the
person against whom it was committed.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Arrogant wave of the hand, and in an instructive tone
Honest anger affords a certain degree of enjoyment
Ovid, 'We praise the ancients'
Pays better to provide for people's bodies than for their brains
Who gives great gifts, expects great gifts again
Who watches for his neighbour's faults has a hundred sharp eyes
IN THE BLUE PIKE
By Georg Ebers
Volume 2.
CHAPTER IV.
The ropedancer, Kuni, really had been with the sick mother and her babes,
and had toiled for them with the utmost diligence.
The unfortunate woman was in great distress.
The man who had promised to take her in his cart to her native village of
Schweinfurt barely supported himself and his family by the tricks of his
trained poodles. He made them perform their very best feats in the
taverns, under the village lindens, and at the fairs. But the children
who gazed at the four-footed artists, though they never failed to give
hearty applause, frequently paid in no other coin. He would gladly have
helped the unfortunate woman, but to maintain the wretched mother and her
twins imposed too heavy a burden upon the kind-hearted vagabond, and he
had withdrawn his aid.
Then the ropedancer met her. True, she herself was in danger of being
left lying by the wayside; but she was alone, and the mother had her
children. These were two budding hopes, while she had nothing more to
expect save the end--the sooner the better. There could be no new
happiness for her.
And yet, to have found some one who was even more needy than she, lifted
her out of herself, and to have power to be and do something in her
behalf pleased her, nay, even roused an emotion akin to that which, in
better days, she had felt over a piece of good fortune which others
envied. Perhaps she herself might be destined to die on the highway,
without consolation, the very next day; but she could save this unhappy
woman from it, and render her end easier. Oh, how rich Lienhard's gold
coins made her! Yet if, instead of three, there had been as many dozens,
she would have placed the larger portion in the twins' pillows. How it
must soothe their mother's heart! Each one was a defence against hunger
and want. Besides, the gold had been fairly burning her hand. It came
from Lienhard. Had it not been for Cyriax and the crowd of people in the
room, she would have made him take it back--she alone knew why.
How did this happen?
Why did every fibre of her being rebel against receiving even the
smallest trifle from the man to whom she would gladly have given the
whole world? Why, after she had summoned up courage and approached
Lienhard to restore his gift, had she felt such keen resentment and
bitter suffering when the landlord of The Blue Pike stopped her?
As she now seized his gold, it seemed as though she saw Lienhard before
her. She had already told Cyriax how she met the aristocratic Nuremberg
patrician, a member of the ancient and noble Groland family, whom his
native city had now made an ambassador so young. But what secretly bound
her to him had never passed her lips.
Once in her life she had felt something which placed her upon an equal
footing with the best and purest of her sex--a great love for one from
whom she asked nothing, nothing at all, save to be permitted to think of
him and to sacrifice everything, everything for him--even life. So
strange had been the course of this love, that people would have doubted
her sanity or her truthfulness had she described it to them.
While standing before St. Sebald's church in Nuremberg, the vision of the
young Councillor's bride at first made a far stronger impression upon her
mind than his own. Then her gaze rested on Lienhard. As he had chosen
the fairest of women, the bride had also selected the tallest, most
stately, and certainly the best and wisest of men. During her
imprisonment the image of this rare couple had been constantly before
her. Not until, through the young husband's intercession, she had
regained her liberty, after he prevented her kissing his hand and,
to soothe her, had stroked her hair and cheeks in the magistrate's room,
did the most ardent gratitude take possession of her soul. From this
emotion, which filled heart and mind, a glowing wealth of other feelings
had blossomed like buds upon a rosebush. Everything in her nature had
attracted her toward him, and the desire to devote herself to him, body
and soul, shed the last drop of blood in her heart for him, completely
ruled her. His image rose before her day and night, sometimes alone,
sometimes with his beautiful bride. Not only to him, but to her also she
would joyfully have rendered the most menial service, merely to be near
them and to be permitted to show that the desire to prove her gratitude
had become the object of her life.
When, with good counsel for the future, he dismissed her from the chief
magistrate's room, he had asked her where she was to be found in case he
should have anything to say to her. It seemed as though, from mingled
alarm and joy, her heart would stop beating. If her lodgings, instead of
an insignificant tavern, had been her own palace, she would gladly have
opened all its gates to him, yet a feverish thrill ran through her limbs
at the thought that he might seek her among her vagabond companions, and
ask in return for his kindness what he would never have presumed to seek
had she been the child of reputable parents, yet which, with mingled
anger and happiness, she resolved not to refuse.
During the day and the night when she expected his visit, she had become
aware that she, who had never cared for any man save for the gifts he
bestowed, was fired with love for Lienhard. Such ardent yearning could
torture only a loving heart, yet what she felt was very unlike the love
with which she was familiar in songs, and had seen in other girls; for
she by no means thought with jealous rancour of the woman to whom he
belonged, body and soul--his beautiful wife. It rather seemed to her
that she was his, and he would no longer be the same if he were separated
from her, nay, as if her very love was hers also. When she heard a noise
outside of her little room she started, and eagerly as she yearned to see
him, blissful as she thought it must be to sink upon his breast and offer
him her lips to kiss, the bold ropedancer, who never cared for the
opinions of others, could not shake off, even for a moment, the fear of
wronging the fair wife who had a better right to him. Instead of hating
her, or even wishing to share the heart of the man she loved with his
bride, she shrank from the approaching necessity of clouding her young
happiness as though it were the direst misfortune. Yet she felt that its
prevention lay, not in her own hands, but in those of Fate. Should it
please Destiny to lead Lienhard to her and inspire him with a desire for
her love, all resistance, she knew, would be futile. So she began to
repeat several paternosters that he might remain away from her. But her
yearning was so great that she soon desisted, and again and again went to
the window with a fervent wish that he might come.
In the terrible tumult of her heart she had forgotten to eat or to drink
since early morning, and at last, in the afternoon, some one knocked at
the door, and the landlady called her.
While she was hurriedly smoothing her thick black hair and straightening
her best gown, which she had put on for him in the morning, she heard the
hostess say that Herr Groland of the Council was waiting for her
downstairs. Every drop of blood left her glowing cheeks, and the knees
which never trembled on the rope shook as she descended the narrow steps.
He came forward to meet her in the entry, holding out his hand with open-
hearted frankness. How handsome and how good he was! No one wore that
look who desired aught which must be hidden under the veil of darkness.
Ere her excited blood had time to cool, he had beckoned to her to follow
him into the street, where a sedan chair was standing.
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