"Go, my daughter, but preserve in a true heart, that which thou has seen."

Clara and Lydia Erast still lay with bowed heads in their dark corners.

The young Priest took his seat at the organ and played in gentle, soothing strains, calculated to loose the souls of the penitents from their excitement. A light step through the Church told him that the second maiden was now leaving. Only Lydia remained in her dark corner.

The tall figure now approached her. Did he more resemble the archangel of G.o.d, or the angel which had fallen away through lofty pride from the Eternal, as he thus approached in the gloom the silent worshipper?

Never had Paolo looked handsomer. His black eyes gleamed with the fire of that ecstasy into which he had worked himself, and a changing colour glowed over his pale cheek. "Dost thou feel the sweetness of heavenly love," he whispered. "Lydia, dost thou see the sweet smiling lips of the Saviour?" The kneeling Lydia felt, how he bowed his face over her head, her bosom worked tempestuously up and down, her cheeks a.s.sumed a deeper colour. As if in the fervor of prayer he seized her hand, and the maiden felt his own tremble. "Canst thou see nothing?" he stammered. "Ah, wherever I look, I see dark brown eyes fixed on me."

And carried out of herself, filled with a deep pa.s.sion, she arose. His self-command now entirely forsook him. He pressed her to him with wild desire, his burning feverish lips sought her own. Powerless she lay in his arms. The minutes flew as if but seconds. Suddenly a cold severe voice was heard. "Are these your exercises, Magister Laurenzano?"

called out the Abbess appearing from behind the organ. "Go to thy room, Lydia," she said to the trembling maiden, and on finding herself alone with the Magister, she drew back the window curtain, so that the last rays of the sun fell on the hidden corner. The young Priest lay as if overwhelmed on the nearest bench, his head buried in the cushion. He answered not a word, as the infuriated Matron continued her harangue.

"For this cause would you impress these mystic sensuous images on the souls of confiding children, and fan in them an impure pa.s.sion, so as to bring about their ruin? Shame on you, a thousand times shame. Better would it be, to attain your evil design by force, than to destroy in this manner the innocency of their hearts."

A sob as that of an hart struck by an arrow reached the ear of the enraged Abbess. She noticed how the young Priest writhed in agony. Pity for the poor young man stirred her to the quick.

"I am willing to believe, Magister Paul," said she in a kinder tone, "that you had not the intention to act in the way I saw, and I thank the Saints that they left me no rest in my room but led me hither, before any greater mischief happened. But you see now what comes of all this juggling, which the Wicked one himself invented, to give the heretics a hold against us. The gardener shall immediately bring these pictures and other objects to your apartment. Should such _Exercitia_ be necessary, I shall preside over them in person, as is required by the rules of all properly conducted convents. You will however return to your home in Heidelberg, so soon as you can do so without injury to our or your reputation. I hold much to a good _conscientia_ in all things, and the _fama publica_ must not slander us."

Thereupon the kindly Dame wished him farewell and left him alone in the Chapel, which however he only quitted an hour afterwards quietly, and as one sick of a fever, supporting himself against the wall.

Dame Sabina went at once to see Lydia, whom she to her great astonishment found in no wise so downcast as she expected. Rather did a bright gleam of joy seem to beam from her eyes. "What am I to say about your proceeding, young woman," began the Abbess sternly, "how is it that you suffer yourself to be kissed in Church by the Priest?"

"Ah!" sighed the maiden blushing, "forgive me most gracious Lady Abbess. It was in truth the first time. The Magister means to act an honest part towards me, and my father will have no objection to our marriage."

The old Lady smiled in a hard manner. "Silly Fool, dost thou not know that Laurenzano is a catholic Priest and neither can nor will marry?"

But the hard words had scarcely escaped her, then she regretted them, for Lydia gazed at her as if she were going mad. The blood had left the maiden's cheek, her eyes had grown unnaturally wide, the large black pupils were fixed on the Abbess. Then she burst into a convulsion of tears. "It is not true. Tell me. Mother, it is not true?" The old Lady caught the child to her heart. Opposed to the heartbreaking grief of this young creature her motherly feelings came uppermost. "Be quiet, child, be quiet. Thy sorrow is not so great as thou thinkest. Thou knowest scarcely this disloyal Priest. Thou lovest the black man in the pulpit, thou hast never seen the real Laurenzano. That which thou lovest is an image of thy phantasy, which thou thyself hast created.

Now thou must efface this foolish idol from thy heart, that is all.

Nothing can come out of it. Laurenzano came to convert us. He would be scoffed at, if he let himself be converted by thy blue eyes."

"I will go back to my father," sobbed the poor child. "I will not remain here."

"Thou must first become more quiet, my child. I cannot bring thee back in this condition to thy father. He must not even hear of what took place here. The Kurfurst would order Laurenzano to be flogged out of the country." The maiden gazed at the Countess in horror. The Abbess kissed her on the forehead, undressed her and helped her to her bed.

Then the old lady sat for some time at the side of the sick child and told her about her own youth, her plans for marriage, and the rich stream of kindness, which poured from the lips of the usually cold Nun, had a beneficial influence upon poor Lydia. When the Domina opened the door, to go, she saw with displeasure two Nuns, who had certainly been listening, hurrying off. Even in the neighbouring cells light steps were heard creeping away. Dame Sabina immediately called a _conventus_, so as to close the mouth of those ladies, whose chattering, as she knew, did not fall far short of their curiosity. When her motherly friend had left her, Lydia thought to herself: "This therefore is the use of the Mirror of remembrance, given to him by his spiritual tyrants, that he may not forget, that he is still a monk." She fancied to herself, how he would look in the cowl, under which she had seen to-day her own affrighted face. But the excitement had been too much for her. Her eyes closed and soon she lay in a deep sound sleep. In the next room Bertha von Steinach had on the contrary much more horrible dreams of the pains of h.e.l.l and the tortures of the d.a.m.ned, and more than once started from her dream calling, "it is burning" and that she plainly smelt the brimstone. "Take away the skull," cried she another time, "see how the worms creep out of the empty sockets." Master Laurenzano moreover, who had caused all this mischief with his _exercitia_, sat in his room, his head leant out of the open window.

That night he sought not his couch. At sundawn he took the little work by St. Ignatius which lay before him, and read out of the last page: "Take, O Lord, my entire freedom, take my memory, my understanding and very will." It was in vain. He could not pray. Troubled and in misery he hastened to the mountains.

CHAPTER VIII.

"In truth I shall have to end up by going to the Hirsch if I wish to see that brother of mine," thought Master Felix, after he had waited the whole of another day expecting that his brother would come up to the Castle. So he set his chisel and ap.r.o.n aside and went down to the Market-place, and from thence entered through the well-known door of the hotel into the back-room, in which the clergy of Heidelberg were wont to meet round a large oaken table. He found the room still empty; the low, arched parlor was only lighted by a single lamp, and at the table sat a stout gray-headed man dressed in black, with a vinous countenance and a bottle nose. "G.o.d's word from the country," thought Felix, taking his seat after a profound bow near to the Parson, whom he thought he had already seen somewhere.

"Have you managed to finish this measure by yourself, reverend Sir?" he asked of the complacent toper.

"Man is a weak and timorous creature," answered the Blackgown sanctimoniously, "at first I thought not to be able to master it by myself, but now through G.o.d's help I am about to order a second."

"Without his divine aid you will be scarcely able to recognize your front door," said the artist laughing.

"What do you know about that?" rejoined the Parson with a severe look.

"He whom a merciful Deity has blest with the capacity of carrying his four measures of Bergstra.s.ser, is ungrateful to his Maker when he only drinks three." Saying this he clapped the tin cover of his stone measure in an audible manner and a hoa.r.s.e voice answered from a neighbouring room: "Coming, Your Reverence, coming." And forthwith a jolly looking little figure with a big red head appeared and took away the Parson's jug.

"And to you, Sir Italiano, shall I bring once more a bucket of water and a thimbleful of wine?" asked the small man, who knew Felix from his former sojourn at the Hirsch.

"As usual, Klaus," answered Felix laughing, whereupon a small gla.s.s of wine and a bottle of water were set before him.

When Felix had looked more attentively at his neighbor, and then cast a glance at the quaint looking waiter, he felt positive, that he had seen the two together somewhere within a few days. "Was it not Klaus, that I saw in your company lately in the ante-chamber of the new hall?" asked he of the Parson. Mr. Adam Neuser, for he was the quiet soaker, pulled down his mouth, as if his red wine tasted of the cork. "Formerly he was court-fool," he said. "But the new-fangled pietists have abolished the office. The foreign court parsons prefer making a fool of our gracious sovereign. They would not even grant him a pension; at that he wished to complain to the Kurfurst in person. All of no avail. Who knows, perhaps, I shall come down to being waiter at the Hirsch, if I do not wish to starve." And he grimly poured a beaker of red wine down his throat.

"Hallo, Neuser, how does the early rising agree with you?" said a deep voice belonging to a portly looking cleric who now entered the room.

"It was a first-rate idea of our mutual friend Olevia.n.u.s, to punish you by appointing you to conduct morning prayer, ha, ha, ha."

"I have scored him down for that, Inspector," rejoined the ruddy faced Neuser, "and I think the time is coming when we shall drive the Trevians, Silesians and French out of South Germany, where they have no business."

"You forget the Italians," inserted Felix laughing.

"No one has up to the present had to complain of your brother," here put in Parson Willing, who had entered the room together with Inspector Sylvan, a slight fair man with interesting but unclerical features, who looked as if he willingly played chess, but unwillingly preached the Gospel. "Magister Laurenzano acts in a modest manner, as befits a foreigner, he is a pleasant companion, and he does not love Calvinists any better than we do, therefore may he play secretly at popery. Ten Bishops would never have plagued us as does this one Olevia.n.u.s."

"Yea verily," continued here Neuser, "I speak of him and of all the starvelings who have tumbled down on our fair Palatinate like a sow on a bag of oats, and are now so full of grub that nothing is good enough for them. Do you know, what that Silesian Ursinus lately wrote in a report to the Kurfurst, when His Grace stopped at Amberg? 'To answer in a few words,' he wrote, 'it is my belief as a Christian that there are not six competent clergymen in the whole of the Palatinate.' Those were his own words. May the Konigstuhl and Heiligenberg fall on his proud, Silesian pate, if we are not christian enough for him."

"Then must cursing be a part of Christianity," murmured the waiter, angry with the Parson, who in order to lay more emphasis on his concluding words, came down so heavily with his fist on the table that the gla.s.ses jumped and part of the contents of his beaker ran over.

"Ho, ho, do not be so peppery, beloved Colleague," here piped in a squeaky voice a fat little man, who funnily resembled a dressed out porpoise, and who was introduced to Felix as Parson Suter of Feudenheim. He added politely taking his seat next to Inspector Sylvan:

"Under the protection of my Inspector the Lutzelsachsener tastes like Ingelheimer. But is not the way in which our Adam is treated, shameful," he continued clapping Neuser on the back, "a man, without whom the Hirsch could not exist."

"And who has the largest congregation in Heidelberg," snarled out Klaus.

"How the largest congregation?" asked the Inspector.

"Yes, of all who do not go to Church." The others laughed, Neuser however cast an angry look at the Fool. "Go to thy barrel, thou wine-spigot."

"He who fiddles the truth, catches it over the head with the bow,"

rejoined Klaus in leaving, while the room re-echoed with the laughter of the clerics at the anger of their already somewhat intoxicated colleague. By this time the pale face of Master Laurenzano appeared from out of the background, who held out to his brother with much grace his small white hand whilst he with a polite bow asked Neuser, the martyr of the hour, as to the state of his health. "I am well," said the fat gentleman spitefully, "and hope the reverend Father is the same." Paul paid no attention to the allusion but took his seat between the Inspector and his brother. He must however have overheard part of the discussion, for he said to Sylvan with a friendly smile: "Your Colleagues let me know pretty well every evening, that they do not like the presence of foreigners, and that they will not have in their country either Calvinists, Lutherans, or Papists. But whom do they then wish? A man must, so it seems to me, be a Heidelberger and drink a quant.i.ty of beer and wine, otherwise he will never be a good cleric in their eyes."

The stately Inspector shook his head. "I am myself not a native of the Palatinate, and yet no one has ever told me, that I was in his way."

The Jesuit looked over his man. "You are a Bavarian, Sir?"

"No, I am from Tyrol, and was a Papist and moreover a zealous one."

"May one ask what damped that zeal?" said Paul with curiosity.

"Why not?" said Sylvan. "The story is not pretty, but it is interesting for people like you, and cannot hurt me to relate, for it took place a long time ago. I come from Trieste, and was educated by Abbot Altherr in Innsbruck, and after being consecrated was sent as Chaplain in the neigbourhood of Salzburg, to aid an aged Priest who found his duties too much for him. Thus I came out of the Seminary into the world, with my head full of plans for the improvement and reformation of men. I got on very well with my fat old Colleague. He lived with his housekeeper, and every afternoon went to Salzburg to drink the good Strohwein at St.

Peter's. That just suited me, as I then had the management of the parish to myself. I carried my wisdom up and down the mountains, preached the Gospel to the peasants till I perceived that they made fun of me, and that their favorite Priest was he who kept most out of their way. Feeling sore I concluded that if the peasants would not hear me I would sit down in the library of the parsonage and set the world on fire through some learned work. Whether I should write on the archangels or the church-t.i.thes would entirely depend on the books I might find there to hand. But heaven only knows what the patristic writings were that I found there. Amadis of Gaul, Erasmus and Hutten, the works of Boccaccio and Sannazar, the Epigrams of Poggio, and the novels of Rabelais. It became suddenly clear to me why this good Priest required so much Strohwein to stupefy him. The love stories which I read, did me much mischief, but I soon cast them away from me; my zeal was awakened and I determined to do away with the scandal. One afternoon that the Priest had gone out, and that the housekeeper was visiting her nephews and nieces, I packed up the entire library of the Antichrist and carried them into the court. I had soon piled up the filthy works and rejoiced to see how well they burnt up. But in my ardour I had not remembered that at this very season the Fohn blew strongly. How could a young Saint only twenty years of age think of such a trifle, when the cause of G.o.d was in question. The burning paper went flying about the court and before I knew the shingles of the pig-sty were on fire. I run for water, pile dung on the burning sty, and whilst I am sweating and puffing, I suddenly notice that the flying bits of paper have set the shingle-roof of the parsonage on fire. I at once run to the Church and toll the alarm bell. People hasten from all sides. I would answer no question, see nothing, hear nothing. But whilst tolling I see how the Church itself is filling with smoke; it is evident that the roof is on fire, I toll all the more till at last the bell itself lies at my feet. It was time for me to step outside. Holy Floria.n.u.s, when I look around me I see the whole place in flames! The wind carried the burning straw from roof to roof. I did not wait to receive from the peasants the reward of my pious efforts, but cut a stick and left the place as hard as my legs could carry me. Of an evening, I curled myself up in a cornfield and went fast asleep. Thus I at last reached Innsbruck where lived my Abbot. I confessed all to him.

'Thou wert zealous but foolishly,' said he, 'thy stay in Tyrol is no longer possible.' Thus I was obliged to come down from my mountains towards the empire, and could choose any of the sixteen corners from which the wind blows over the plain of Munich. It now became necessary to repress myself and to cringe, and I soon entirely lost the art of rooting the sins of others out by fire. When finally I reached France, my zeal had vanished. Bishop Zobel of Wurzburg thought however that I was a thorough Tyrolean and knew how to behave myself, he therefore appointed me Canon and Court Preacher. If there was no Strohwein there was at least Steinwein. I found my Theresa and right or wrong as it might please G.o.d we lived together. But finally I thought the whole thing bad and asked in the Palatinate whether I could find employment, as Theresa was always dinning in my ears that I should marry her, and I felt I should like to have my children about me. Thus it was I came to Ladenburg. Instead of heavy Steinwein I now drink Lutzelsachsener. The wine is not tasty, but only a small disrelish has to be overcome, and it is healthier. In short Inspector Sylvan is a happier man than the Canon of Wurzburg ever was. That is my story, young man, and I think you will find something to copy therein."

"I thank you, Sir," said Paul smiling, "you may be certain that I shall not set your Heidelberg on fire. It catches fire without my aid once in every four weeks."

"Room for Chancellor Probus and the Church Counsellor," cried out Neuser eagerly, as Erast came in accompanied by a stoutly built portly man, who leaning on his sword sat down at the clerical table. The rows became closer and closer, and the young daughter of the court fool, a fresh country la.s.s from the Palatinate, gayly attended to their wants.

She appeared however not to notice Master Laurenzano. He sat there without being waited on till the host himself brought him a measure of wine.

"Who is the rough looking man with the huge forehead?" asked the artist. "I mean the individual who so quickly swallows down one beaker after another, and whose every remark calls out a shout of applause from those in his immediate neighbourhood."