Klytia Part 25

"Dost thou permit me then to marry a Catholic?"

"What right would I have to forbid? So often as I pa.s.s the square on which was spilt the blood of my friend, the very stones cry out to me, 'thou hypocrite, in what art thou better than the Caraffas?' The officium of the Calvinists has rendered me lenient towards index and inquisition."

"And wilt thou be equally lenient," asked Lydia timidly, "if I marry Paul?"

Erastus looked at her in amazement: "How? After that he plunged us all in this misery, can'st thou not sever thy heart from him?"

"Ask this flower why it follows the course of the sun," said Lydia, "it cannot do otherwise."

"But how can'st thou prefer the horrible Priest, this pale man broken down in health to the straightforward, happy young Maestro?"

"I know not," said the maiden thoughtfully. "This love has deeper roots than those of reason. In what does it consist? Merely in my love for him, in that I cannot tear myself away from him. Not because he is handsomer or wiser than others am I his, but only because I cannot live away from him, because he is my Sun, without whom I should wither away as does this flower in winter;" and she silently dried the tears which rose to her eyes.

"He has suffered too severely for our sakes," answered Erastus after a few moments of thought, "for me to say nay. It is G.o.d's decree, His will be done."

CHAPTER XV.

Slowly was the patient of the gable-house moving towards convalescence.

His wounds still smarted, and any motion caused him pain, but he bore all his sufferings with the greatest composure, and to his brother's inquiry he answered with a grateful look: "_Sta bene._" Klytia also who continued to nurse him with a certain diffidence, he ever greeted with a look of deep grat.i.tude. In the weak condition in which he now found himself all natural pa.s.sion, force of character, and love of the artificial seemed to have left him; he was kinder and more simple than he had ever been before; fict.i.tiousness, nonsense and bombast had fallen away from him. The brilliant personality of the Italian savant, which spreads a s.h.i.+mmer of eloquence over the most unimportant theme, and loves to express epigrammatically the most common place subject, had been replaced by a poor suffering man. He was no longer the _primus omnium_ of the college at Venice whose mouth overflowed with wisdom.

Rather was there something childlike in his helplessness. He modestly held back, although all interest was centred on him. His grat.i.tude for any attention, his respect for Belier's and Erastus' learning, his una.s.suming attention caused him to resemble a mere boy. Now only could one perceive how young he really was. When Frau Belier pa.s.sionately exclaimed at the sight of his wounds he meekly answered: "I wished to do the same to others, who were better than I, n.o.ble Lady, and whose sins were less clear of proof than mine." He took part in conversation only when directly questioned, but listened eagerly when Erastus or Belier discussed Church matters, or when Felix and the mistress of the house violently argued about nothing, whilst Lydia quietly glided through the room like a sunbeam and by her noiseless activity gave to the whole a tone of beauty and individual coloring. When Paul at last supported by Erastus and his brother was led to an armchair and thus enabled to join for hours the family circle, they all expected that his former originality and mental superiority would show itself once again.

But he remained silent, gentle and as if apparently inwardly crushed.

This resignation on the part of his brother finally appeared serious to Felix. It was something so utterly opposed to the fiery disposition of the young artist that he said to himself: "His limbs will be cured, of that Erastus is certain, but his nature is broken, like those of the few victims of the inquisition I saw in Rome, who were suffered to return to public life."

"I do not like to see thee so wise and genuine," he said one day to Paul, as the family were expending their wrath on the subject of some fresh molestation on the part of the Theologians, whilst Paul endeavored kindly and quietly to place their intentions in a better light. "It seems as if thou couldest no longer punish evil."

"That may be the case," answered the sick man. "I see no crime committed that I myself might not have committed. What should our failings teach us, but charity towards others?"

Klytia herself had become another person, since Paul had so retired within himself. Quiet and reserved she went her way. She seemed to be satisfied with being able to serve him, to provide for all things, but the joyous childish smile had left her face. Felix who was working at her marble bust, found, when she sat for him, a melancholy trait in her reverie, which had formerly not existed. "She looks like some young widow, who mournfully ponders over her departed joy. But I will soon rouse the foolish children out of their unbearable reserve and self-sacrifice." One day that he found his brother sitting alone near the window of his oaken-panelled room, gazing with longing look out of the diamond panes over the gables of the houses towards the Heiligenberg, as if counting each individual pine, which seemed to detach itself from the white clouds behind, the opportunity appeared favorable to the artist.

"Thou must be digging out a new philosophy, Paolo," he said laughing, "that thou gazest up for hours at the blue October sky."

"I see no necessity for one," replied Paul wearily. "Resignation is true philosophy and life itself teaches us that."

"Why must thou be resigned? Thou seemest to have made a pact with Lydia of mutual self-sacrifice."

A flaming color spread suddenly over the patient's pale face. "Why dost thou hide thyself behind the clouds, thou love-sick Apollo, and sufferest thy flower to mourn? Must I take her by the hand and lead her to thee?"

Paul made a motion of grief. "Thou would'st sacrifice thyself, my good Felix," he cried, "but how could I accept such a sacrifice?"

"Sacrifice," said the Maestro, merrily c.o.c.king his Raphael cap to one side. "We artists are terrible sinners. Since I have modelled the pure face, since I have caught the determined look on her lips and have spitted it in marble, like a b.u.t.terfly stuck through with a pin, my heart has as much abandoned her as any other model with which I have succeeded, and it seems to me as if I had almost too much of the dear child. I dream of a less gentle, less pliant being, allotted to me by heaven, a Neapolitan woman with hooked nose, black eyes, and sharp claws at the end of her forepaws. In a word I will paint Lydia on a church banner for the Scalzi, but will as soon marry her as the Madonna. I want a wife with whom I can quarrel."

Paul shook his head sadly: "Even if that were the case, how can one tainted by suspicion, a racked cripple, a walking corpse stretch out his arms towards this young sweet life? It would indeed be a crime."

At that minute a young pale head bowed down over him, fresh warm lips were fastened on his pale mouth. "I will never nurse any but this patient," she said in a low trembling voice.

"Lydia," cried Paolo in his delight. "Thou art willing to bind thy happy destiny to that of a cripple?"

"I shall make him once more as healthy and frolicsome as the squirrel on the tops of the trees," joyously laughed Klytia. A sunbeam of joy pa.s.sed over the face of the pale man. The artist retired however to his studio, turned the marble bust with its face to the wall, and began a.s.siduously to work at the facade of Herr Belier's future house.

"Hast thou in truth chosen the Papist, the stranger as the companion of thy life-time?" asked Erastus with a grave shake of the head, as Klytia with her arm wound round Paul announced her determination to her father.

"His land shall be my land and his G.o.d shall be my G.o.d," replied Klytia with an inward joy, which Erastus knew he could not oppose.

"I did not wish to mix the things of this world with those of another,"

now said Paul modestly, "otherwise I should have told you that I cannot return to the old Communion. Before this I used to rage against your church, which broke down the altars, and laid waste the sacred places; but you have one great advantage over us, you have no slaves. Moreover dogma has no longer for me the same importance that it used to have.

Each of us strove after the right doctrine, but who can tell in this day of shattering of opinions and ideas what the right doctrine may be?

You persecuted the Baptists and Arians owing to true principles. The Calvinists persecuted you, the Palatines hate both Zwingliites and Lutherans. I however hated all Baptists, Zwingliites, Lutherans and Calvinists. We have all steeped our hands in blood in honor of that G.o.d who said to us: 'thou shalt not kill.' If we continue in this way, soon in this beauteous land the groans of the tortured and the blood of the slain will cry to heaven as in the Netherlands and in France, and what that may mean, is only known to one who may have experienced it on his own body. One must have looked the most terrible death in the face, to be convinced, how small in reality is the belief for the which we are ready to die. As lately I was pondering over in my prison: Who can indeed possess a certain and sure promise of the Spirit, that his doctrine is of G.o.d, where then in the ocean of deceit is the safe rock on which we may take a firm foothold? The words of a heretic whom I formerly deeply despised came uppermost to me. That Baptist whom you yourself know. 'The Spirit,' he cried once to me, 'exists not outwardly in dogma and in _cultus_, but only in the life. Then only does it appear in that one sees, feels and hears it. We know more certainly the right that should be done, than the right that should be taught.

Therefore true belief is this, that you do the will of G.o.d, not that you revolve principles of dogma concerning things invisible which are not of man but of G.o.d.' At that time I covered my ears with my hands, so as not to hear such blasphemous arguments, but they came back to me in the stillness of the prison. When the witch acknowledged that she had never seen the devil, for the which we burnt her, the idea stirred me to the roots of my heart, for what uncertainties we often commit a certain wrong. All our errors arise from our thinking too much of G.o.d's honor, too little of his law, speak too much of the invisible world, too little of the visible. We were pious because we murdered for the sake of another world; we were pleasing in G.o.d's sight because for the other world we lied, deceived and led men astray, and because we made our love of power and right the affair of the Deity, all our other sins should therefore be pardoned. Our care for that unknown world has led us to despise this visible one. To become angels in heaven, we were ravening wolves on earth. Only when I thought over the word which the heretic had called out to me: 'The spirit is nowhere visible but in the life,' then only did the scales fall from my eyes, and I determined to commit the doctrines of G.o.d into G.o.d's own hands, and to do in this life, what he had plainly revealed to me in heart and by word."

Erastus returned no answer, as Herr Belier came in with Xylander who wished to greet Erastus. After a time they were joined by Felix, who within the last few days had looked less cheerful than usual. "Our friend would leave us," said the Huguenot. "He goes first to Innsbruck to visit Master Colins and then returns to Naples. In vain I have begged him to renounce papistry; he declares that he will not cut himself off from his people, and that art-loving Italy will never raise itself to our wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d in Spirit and in Truth."

"You are right," said Erastus kindly. "We cannot make use of the Papal Church as it now is and the Italians cannot use our churches as they now are. It is sufficient for us to think out our thoughts and to act accordingly, the Italians wish them represented before them sensuously.

Perhaps the time may come when this dissonance solves itself into a higher harmony, as Lydia once said, in which the white surplices and black gowns will be as much things of the past as are to-day Garizim und Moriah, or the disputes of the Levites and Samaritans, nevertheless I fear that the day is much further off than Lydia thinks. But we have indeed the promises of a time, when there will be no temple and no priest and I believe that the world will give a sigh of relief when the last Theologian has been buried." "I should myself like to be standing by that grave," said Xylander vivaciously. "I would place with this humanitarian all the implements with which he worked, his symbolical books, bishops' mitres, pitch torches, the pears of torture, and a bit of Sylvan's b.l.o.o.d.y s.h.i.+rt which was wickedly sent to me on the day after the poor man's death. They would trumpet in the next world that Kalchas and Teiresias, Augurs and Haruspices were soft-hearted fellows in comparison with those who came after them. When I consider the amount of blood that has been shed since the days of Constantine to the present time, I wish that a Church had never existed!" "No," replied Erastus, "it was not my meaning that we should overthrow the Church because the priests do not satisfy us. That would be like tearing down a house, because the owner was not popular. We must only place it in other hands, rule it in a different manner, and for this reform, which is so necessary, I know of no better fundamental doctrine than that, which Magister Paul intends to preach for the future, that the Spirit exists only outwardly in one way, and that is in the Life."

"I hope sincerely," said Felix turning to his brother, "that thou are not serious in wis.h.i.+ng to spend thy days in misery in this land of fogs, and in cold churches without music, to waste thy life full of hope in fruitless preachings unaided by art? No, come with me. Thou art an Italian and can'st not live without the aesthetic, and if thou remainest, wilt soon enough have to sing out the _super flumina Babylonis_."

"No Felix," said Paul in a determined tone. "As the choice lies open to me: rather no music, no pictures, not even laurel hedges and gardens of the Hesperides, than any return to the old pool of sulphur."

"And dost thou really wish to die a Calvinistic preacher?"

Paul was silent for a while, then modestly answered: "The moment I regained my consciousness I said daily to myself: Away with the cowl. A profession which requires us to appear better than other men, easily renders us much worse. Moreover I felt, that after the miseries which I have survived, many a temptation is left behind--and finally what otherwise should I become, dost thou think?"

"Teacher, Magister, Doctor," enumerated the artist quickly.

"I have experienced too much that is serious to be anything else than a preacher. Shall I mend up the mutilated verses of old poets? or tinker together the fragments of some forgotten sophist? or pile up some other learned dung-heap? Whosoever has experienced what I have, can no longer choose the embellishments of life as the centre of his existence. My thoughts cleave to the core of life, bitter as it may be; that will I make the substance of my labours. I will beg the Kurfurst to appoint me to some quiet parish, hidden away in the furthermost wooded valley of his dominions. There I will teach children to fold their little hands, advise parents how to guard their children's hearts, strengthen husbands and wives in their good intentions, sustain the weak, guide the erring into the ways of peace. And if I have watched over the smallest congregation in this land like a good shepherd, so that it returns after my preaching happier and better qualified to the work and burden of life, finding itself more reconciled and meek under trials, comforted in all sorrow, then I will have a fuller certainty that my life has not been lived in vain, than if boys were reading my edition of the poets, or doctors naming a dogma after me. I do not wish to be renowned but forgotten. The children and the neighbours only will know of me, and I feel certain that my bride longs for such a modest existence."

Klytia leant tenderly over him and gazed into his eyes, Felix alone did not seem to approve that the end of such a great beginning should be a hidden Hyperborean village. The Magister however leant his hand affectionately on his brother's shoulder and said: "My good Felix, be a.s.sured that the Parson Paul will be a happier man than ever the Magister Laurenzano was, and the fame of our n.o.ble race may be safely entrusted to thy artistic hands."

"See the creation of our new Michel Angelo," cried Herr Belier, unfolding a plan of the new house which was to replace the old gable house on the market. A shout of delight escaped them all.

"How grandly story is piled on story," said Erastus, "up to the proud gable, which shows the world the armour in the which our valiant friend fought so stoutly. And here is the s.h.i.+eld of the Beliers and the faithful portrait of our host."

"_Mon Dieu_!" cried the little woman, "there is even my poor parrot on my wrist. The sacrificial lamb which redeemed the blood from our house."

"Here, Herr Belier," said the delighted Felix, "have I left an empty frieze for you to add in your device."

"Be that the artist's part," replied the chivalrous Huguenot. Felix bent his head thoughtfully and casting a loving look at Klytia, mindful of his brother's hard won fortune, he gaily seized the pencil and wrote in large letters: "_Perstat invicta Venus_!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Wegewarte, Chicory (Cichorium Intybus z).]

[Footnote 2: A play on the name, here meaning quarrelsome.]