The Romance of the Canoness Part 6

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 s.e.xton, 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d, 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 G.o.d for their s.h.i.+eld, and what a precious thing this s.h.i.+eld 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 pa.s.sed 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, Fraulein 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 n.o.bleman; 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 Fraulein 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 peac.o.c.k 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 G.o.dless 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 G.o.d has the same pleasure in the chirp of the cricket as in the trills of the nightingale."

"You wound me, Fraulein," 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 G.o.d 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.

"Fraulein," I said, once more fully conscious of my ecclesiastical dignity, "has not G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.d 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 s.e.x?"

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

"Do you really believe so? I think, on the contrary, that G.o.d 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 wors.h.i.+p, Fraulein?"

"No, only that which prevents our coming to ourselves and G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sume 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, Fraulein, 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.