Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg Castle

by Adolf Hausrath

CHAPTER IV.

The following morning the sun shone brightly on the small bow-window of the room in the castle, in which Felice Laurenzano now dwelt. The Otto Heinrich building stood before him in the bluish mist of the early morning, and behind in vague outlines the Königsstuhl. The balmy air of the park surrounding the castle poured in through the open window, and the full notes of numerous birds sent forth an invitation to come out and enjoy the freshness of the morning. In a cheery mood the young man dressed himself, keeping ever before him the façade which was about to become the future work of his life. But to-day his first duty must be to seek out his brother whom he had not seen for so long, and who now occupied an official dwelling in the Convent (Stift) at Neuburg.

The appointment of the young Jesuit to the Convent Neuburg, at that time protestant, had a history. The Convent situated within half an hour of Heidelberg was so rich and lay so immediately under the eyes of the Kurfürst, that it was impossible for it to escape "reform." Even Frederic II. had stretched out his hand in that direction, whilst Otto Heinrich had insisted on processions and clausure being done away with, and granted the nuns permission to secede from their vows. Over those that remained a counsellor of the Palatinate had been appointed as Inspector, who confiscated the church property for the benefit of the Palatinate treasury leaving to the ladies a meagre annuity. Thus far the "reforms" had not been very serious. When however the Inspector endeavored to alter the mode of life of these old ladies, he learnt to know a power of resistance in these obstinate and headstrong females against which he could not cope. As everywhere else, the nuns here clung with greater tenacity to the old ways than did the monks or priests. The female mind took no pleasure in the dogmatic discussions of the reformers, and the reformation deprived these pious ladies of everything for the which their hearts yearned, their particular dress, the regular life, to which they were so accustomed, their beloved pictures, and moreover the great consolation of their solitary lives--their songs. To sing and attend mass, had been up to that time their sole occupation, and thus in peaceful retirement had they been happy. Evenly proportioned between Ave Maria and Salve Regina, their days had peacefully succeeded one another. But now a turbulent throng raged around their gates, and the haughty spiritual advisers of the Kurfürst forced themselves contrary to all regulations within their walls, to explain to them, that this existence was opposed to the Gospel and to destroy their peace by forcing them to hear theological arguments. Terrified out of their quiet life, the helpless dames burst into the bitterest complaints against the tyranny which forbade them the use of consecrated salt, wax-candles, and all things pertaining to the glorification of God, and also refused to suffer them to sing "Regina cœli," or "Maria mater gratiæ." Moreover these proud new fangled Theologians with their wide white neck-bands permitted the youngest novice to confute their Domina out of the Scriptures, the servants were urged to break the commands of the church, and when the child of the convent miller, whom the old ladies had loved and petted, died, no one dared to administer the last unction to him, he was allowed to die "like a beast" and was buried without incense or holy water. That Satan himself had incited the wicked Luther and the hellish Calvin to such misdeeds was a moral certainty to the good nuns, who never wearied praying for help from any native or foreign protectors. Should then another Church Counsellor appear from Heidelberg and order the Domina and her flock to set forth their complaints, the new negotiations produced about as much result as had the old. Either the gentleman was received in solemn unbroken silence or the old ladies all shrieked at him at one and the same time, so that he could only report in Heidelberg that they wished for a renewal of the former status and met with truly diabolical opposition the word of God. Otto Heinrich now appointed a special Preacher to convert them, but they protested against this breach of conventual propriety. The Preacher occupied the pulpit during the principal church service, but only preached to empty benches, and scarcely had he left the church than the nuns trooped in with holy water and incense, and consecrating the church anew, they held a service of their own. The Preacher closed the church, but they sang all the more lustily in the refectory. The Inspector confiscated their song-books, they looked in all the corners for old ones and shrieked to Heaven till their wearied old throats gave out. These books were likewise taken away, but they sang from memory. Sometimes they read the Horæ in one room, sometimes in another by closed doors, and their "Salve Regina" never sounded louder or shriller than when the Inspector and Preacher raged outside and demanded admission in the name of the Count Palatine. When the two gentlemen had thus been beaten off, then the Domina and her ladies sent a complaint to the Kurfürst, that the men, whom he had introduced into their nunnery, had attempted to force their way into the nuns' cells to spite their virginal chastity, honor and other laudable qualifications. Out of revenge the Inspector took the clapper from the bell and cut the ropes so that they could no longer toll the "tempora." Then arose a loud wailing and sobbing all through the convent, and the Inspector grinned as contentedly as if he heard the most delectable music, but in the evening when he climbed into his bed, he found it as wet as if the rain had poured through the roof, and when he strode down the steps the next morning in a rage, to insist upon an inquiry in the matter of this outrage, he trod on some peas which caused him to fall so heavily as to produce a painful lump. This mode of life seemed to him so miserable and unprofitable that he resigned the place and returned to Heidelberg. As the Preacher was now left alone he comforted himself in his solitary chamber at the furthermost end of the convent, with a beaker of wine; but the Domina took note of every little dissipation which he thus enjoyed, and drawing up an affidavit which was signed by many unimpeachable witnesses of both sexes, sent it off to the Chancellory at Heidelberg, who reproved the poor man so severely, that his life likewise became a burden to him. Otto Heinrich had considered the struggle carried on under his eyes in the light of an excellent joke, and whenever he was informed of any new tribulation undergone by his Inspector, the stout lord, who measured three feet and a half across the back from shoulder to shoulder, laughed so loud, that the large dining room of the new Court shook again. But he was succeeded by Frederic III., who looked more seriously at the "damnable bigotry of the Mass." He caused certain of the most obstinate among these female insurgents to be seized and sent to the hospital at Dilsberg in order to nurse the sick soldiers of the fortress. Old Domina Brigitta was also deprived of her pastoral staff, and the prioress Sabina of Pfalz-Zweibrücken was only permitted to retain her position on promising to keep the peace, and because she happened to be a favorite cousin of the Kurfürst. The reform of the Church and Convent was however now carried on in the most ruthless manner. The ladies had to give way to violence as they could not do otherwise. Outwardly the Stift preserved an evangelical appearance, mass was no longer celebrated, the songs in honor of the Mother of God and of the Saints were heard no more, the preaching was protestant, and the elements were distributed in both forms. The number of schoolchildren was increased, and the nuns were compelled to teach them reading, writing, and the female accomplishments. This the new Abbess had to permit, but at heart the older generation of nuns remained Romanists and privately hoped for better days.

The new Domina herself was a kind-hearted, rather old-fashioned lady. She was in reality as catholic as the others, but she loved peace and wisely avoided a conflict with those in power. When the Pfalz inclined from Lutheranism to Calvinism, public attention became less and less directed to the Stift. The ladies now hoped to be able to return to their former practices if they could only get rid of the Preacher. Domina Sabina managed at last, owing to her influence with the Church Council of the Kurfürst, to have the old drunkard as she called him dismissed from his office. To avoid fresh conflicts, the Kurfürst ordered that the ladies should choose from among the clergy of the town the preacher most acceptable to them. Long had they consulted and hesitated, at length they elected Master Laurenzano of the College of the Sapientia, who was capable of imparting instruction in the foreign languages to the young ladies committed to their charge. "My pious cousin has chosen the youngest and handsomest of the lot," sneered the Kurfürst, as he nevertheless granted their wish. "They will however thus become quicker reconciled to the new doctrines," he thought. This time he had not seen the matter in the right light, and however sharp the old gentleman appeared, in this case he had been taken in. In the meanwhile he gave orders that Master Laurenzano should at times preach in the castle, "so that one might taste the food on which the Dames were fed, for this was not the affair of a cap full of flesh, but of the eternal welfare of the soul."

Paul's conversion to Calvinism was something new to Master Felix, and the rôle of preacher appeared to him all the more grievous, as he had gathered from Pigavettas' remarks, that the new faith had only been assumed, to spy on the heretics. The education in the Jesuits' college had ever been in Felix's eyes a fate attended with all good to himself, but with much tribulation to Paul. Thus together with his love for his younger brother, there existed a feeling of pity and commiseration, which rendered him kind and yielding towards the excitable young Priest, who often aroused his mental indignation, but also called for much sympathy. Whether Paul had taken oaths binding to the order, Felix knew as little, as what to make out of his part of calvinistic preacher. "Poveretto," he sighed, "I have never understood this reserved brother of mine, nevertheless Erastus' way of speaking, showed me plainly, that something still exists to be comforted, perhaps cured. Poor Paolo, yonder planetary Deities must have formed a complex conjunction at thy birth."

Thus saying Felix threw his cloak over his shoulders and pulled the brim of his Raphael cap well down so as to protect his eyes from the sun. He moreover began to hum his favorite song, but the Nina, Ninetta, Nina, involuntarily stuck in his throat as he entered the gloomy gateway of the watch-tower. "One goes in and out of here like the prophet Jonas," muttered he with a feeling of discomfort. "Do not the pointed spikes of the drawn up portcullis project over the round, dark moat as do the teeth of an open-mouthed shark? Sincerely do I hope that these jaws will never snap behind me." Only after leaving the fortress behind him did his heart feel lighter. The towers of the town arose out of the morning-mist, as Felix gazed over at the beauteous plain beyond. In the marketplace, opposite the chief church, he exchanged a few friendly words with the host of the Hirsch, paid his bill, and after finishing his breakfast, walked down the street towards the Neckar to the covered wooden bridge which led to the other side of the river. At the other end Felix had to give his name and the object of his stay in Heidelberg to the watchman of the guard tower, before being allowed to issue through the gateway. The mountains of the Neckar valley tinged with a deep blue lay before the youthful wanderer and with charmed gaze did his eye roam from the nut-trees which lined the road to the green fore-land of the river, whose emerald waters glistened in thousand circles, or dashed white crested against the large granite blocks, which according to the legend a young giant had pitched down from the Heiligenberg for a wager with his father, who himself had however hurled them straight across to the so-called Felsenmeer. To the left of the road beauteous lilacs hung over the garden-wall, or, sweet-smelling elders in which the finches built their nests were to be seen.

"Since I turned my back on the snows of the Alps," thought the young artist, "I have never seen any landscape which reminds me more of Italy than does this valley with its chestnuts and vines. Who would have expected so much beauty, that gorgeous building opposite, this Neckar valley at my feet. I am a child of Fortune, therefore am I named Felice." And he drank in deep draughts of the air laden with the perfume of the newly-broken up sod and the fragrant rape-fields, borne to him on the wind. Whilst thus dreaming of the delightful sensation of being one of the lucky mortals, a division of the road caused him to remember that he hardly knew whether he would reach his destination by following this path, and he therefore stopt to await a peasant, who had stood by his side whilst he gave his name at the Bridge.

"You cannot have heard much about Heidelberg," said the old man, "if you do not know where the Neuburg lies? Come along with me, you wish to visit your brother, the Italian parson?"

"How do you know that Magister Laurenzano is my brother?"

"Why he is as like you as two peas, only he is thinner and pale, but a fine speaker, you must hear him in the pulpit, he is like a dancer on a tight-rope."

"You have heard him?" asked Felix rather shocked at the comparison.

"That I have," rejoined the old man. "As I went for the first time to the Court chapel, I saw in the pulpit a tall young man of about six feet, who raged, wept, wrung his hands, and threw himself from one side of the pulpit to the other, in a way that quite frightened me. What can have taken place, I thought to myself 'Oh! what a total depravity of the human heart!' I heard him call out as I sat down. Have they whacked him, thought I, or broken his windows, or stolen his cabbages? For it did not seem like preaching, but quite natural. Then he said again: 'Dearly beloved, such was the hardness of heart of the people of Israel against Moses.' Ah, thought I, if that is all the matter, that happened a long time ago. I had thought from the way the mannikin carried on that the parsonage was on fire."

Felix looked attentively at the old man. "You are no peasant?"

"I am a miller."

"Is yonder house the convent?"

"No, that is where the novices had their hair cut before entering into the cloister. Now kindling material (Lohkäse) is made there. It has been turned into a tan-yard."

"You do not appear to be a friend to the Catholics?"

"I was a Catholic at the time when everybody else was catholic."

"And then you became a Lutheran?"

"And am now a Calvinist, as we are not allowed to remain Zwingliites."

"Did you change willingly?"

"One was obliged to do it."

"And when the Pfalzgraf Ludwig becomes Kurfürst, what will you be then?"

"One must take things as they come," said the old man with a sly smile. "After Ludwig comes another Frederic. You know what our Sovereign said, 'If Jack does not do it, Freddy will.' One must know how to wait."

Felix did not quite believe in the passive resignation of the weather beaten old man, for there was a cunning look in his eyes, and his whole appearance was not one of stupid dependence.

"In my country," said the young man carrying on the conversation, "we say that at the present time in Germany a cock-chafer can fly over three different national churches, but it appears to me that if he only lives long enough, he need not even fly. Religions here seem to change like the weather."

"That is good as producing change and movement," said the old man laughing. "When I lived in the town, every Parson had his special idea concerning the holy sacrament, and each of my eight children had his separate Parson. Harry learnt that the Body of the Lord was in the bread; that is not enough, argued little Christina, he is with, in, and under the bread. Parson Neuser told Christopher that it was there in the Presence and that we received it through eating. Parson Greiner however taught Jack: circa circum, round and about, not in the bread but close at hand. Do you understand?"

"Were the customs then," answered Felix evasively, "as varied as the opinions."

"Oh yes," said the old man, "the year in the which we had at one and the same time both the Church Counsellors of the old Count, and those of the new, was an amusing year; then had every church its own ritual. Hesshusen enclosed the host in the tabernacle, consecrated it, turning his back to the congregation, ordered them to worship the wafers and handed these to the communicants over a communion cloth, so that not a single crumb should be lost, and what remained was buried as in the good old time. In the Convent, mass was once more celebrated. In the Church of St. Peter they wished to become Zwingliites as is Erastus the Physician to the Kurfürst. Then they kept their seats on the benches and the bread and wine was handed round as in a tavern. In the sacristy the Deacon reclined with twelve others to celebrate the Lords' supper, so that everything should take place as at Jerusalem, and once the assistant-clergyman brought a soup-tureen filled with wine and crumbled the bread in it, and said they must dip the hand with Christ in the dish, that alone was a veritable communion."

The Italian crossed himself.

"That must have been a beautifully peaceful church, when every Preacher did as he chose," said he.

"Well, not exactly peaceful. Hesshusen wished once to snatch the cup out of Klebitz's hands on the altar steps of the Holy Ghost, and these two right reverend gentlemen blackguarded each other before the church doors in such a manner that the market-women of Ziegelhausen and Bergheim learnt quite a collection of expressions. The following Sunday however the Superintendent-General got into the pulpit, excommunicated the Deacon, and forbade the congregation to have any intercourse with him. No one should eat or drink with the excommunicated man, and the authorities were compelled to deprive him of his office. Then you should have seen how the Heidelbergers went for each other."

"Now you see, man," said Felix angrily, "what comes from doing away with customs thousands of years old, when every man insists on doing what passes through his head."

"The Turkish religion is also a thousand years old and yet comes from the devil."

"But what is your creed, as you are neither catholic, lutheran, zwinglian, or calvinist?" asked Felix. The old man looked at him cautiously and then said in a low voice: "The spirit must act, not the sacrament. Water availeth not, neither do bread and wine. The Spirit must come from inwardly. They have many Bibles in Heidelberg, but they only look at things from the outside, not inwardly in the spirit. Therefore the confusion."

"You do not then belong to any Heidelberg communion?"

"You do not possess the truth," replied the old man. "You baptize children who do not know the difference between good and evil, or what yes or no is, and then you say, they have renounced the Devil. Thus you begin with a lie."

"Well but for this reason children are confirmed at a riper age."

"A pretty ripeness. Go to the Sunday-school, when the boys sing out in lusty tones, as if welcoming summer, 'For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the Lord,' or cheerily shriek out, 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death?' You should be ashamed to teach children to babble the Holiest name like heathens, and to turn the whole affair to ridicule. Language used by children without thought is the beginning of lies. Dogs learn to chew leather when fastened to smeared thongs. You confirm them, when they are twelve or thirteen years old, not because the spirit moves them, but because it is time and customary. That is not an introduction to the church, but to the dancing saloon. The Parson preaches, not because he is urged on by the Spirit, but because he is paid for doing so. Like a quack he says on Sunday, what he has just learnt the day before. As I go home Sunday nights and see the lights in the study of the rectory when the two parsons and the two deacons are preparing their sermons, I cannot help thinking: they are not ashamed of lying. Verily they no longer know it to be a lie, when they stretch out their arms and call upon the Lord in heaven in a state of ecstasy, and repeat all the time what they prepared the day before, and lower down sits the Parson's wife, who has heard him reading it aloud, and she does not feel ashamed either. And others there are who preach in the Chapel of the Stift, and call so earnestly on the Lord, that the hearts of the poor nuns sink quite low under their tight bodices, and then they go over to Heidelberg to the Holy Ghost, and call on Him again in exactly the same words, so that he may the better remember them, because the Almighty is rather forgetful. Is it not so?"

"Well, but man," replied Felix indignantly, "how would you have a church without a priest, or how could you have service on Sundays, if the preacher did not prepare his sermon?"

"Come to us, and I will show you."

"Who are you," said Felix.

"When you come to Ziegelhausen, ask for Werner the miller of the Kreuzgrund, and you will be shown the way. You are a Romanist?"

"I am."

"And your brother is still one at heart?"

"Who says so?"

"When you see him greet him from Werner the Baptist, and if he only knew what a treacherous thing speech is, would he not let the mouth overflow with things, of which the heart is not full. He will however not do so much longer, says the Baptist, because no man can deny the truth without danger to his own soul. If he only wishes to eat well as he has done up to the present, let him remain where he is, but if he wants to sleep as he formerly used to, then let him come to Werner the Baptist, who will procure for him that stone on which the Lord has written his name, which no one knoweth but he who giveth it, and he who receiveth it." The old man had drawn himself up, and his eyes flashed. The strange mocking peasant was no longer there, a prophet in the coarse dress of the country stood before the young Italian. "Fare you well," he added drily.

"Thank you, Father."

"No cause for thanks. Here is your path. Do not however pass through the big gate, but along the wall, the door leading to the chaplain's apartment, is in the corner tower. He is not allowed to live near the ladies, and it would be better if he did not live here at all. Fire and brimstone should not be brought so close together. Everything in your communion is wrong, as if the Devil himself was your Superintendent." Saying so the old man hastened on his way.

Felix looked after him for some time. "Things are much worse here than I thought. I left Venice willingly, because the severity of the holy Inquisition cut me to the quick. I cannot drive from me this scene: poor men torn at the rack, led down to the Lido and forced unto a board spread between two gondolas. Then thus carried out to the Laguna, when one boatman rowed to the right, the other to the left, the board falling and the two poor fellows sinking in the troubled waters. It was a horrible sight. But come what may, my beautiful Italy must never be allowed to attain to such a condition as exists here. What have I not lived to see! The holiest chapels profaned, irrecoverable treasures of art destroyed by coarse hands, the churches as bare as stalls, altars and fonts shattered, organs broken to pieces. No mass of Palestrina's, no Miserere addresses itself to those poor men, no picture by some pious master speaks to those blunted hearts! Therefore do their Theologians rage and argue as to how the Incomprehensible in the inconceivable mystery is to be comprehended as if the mystery did not consist in our not being able to grasp it. I can endure all: bad music, inartistic pictures, statues by Bandinelli, but when I hear this heretical twaddle, then do I think, that a lunatic asylum as high as the tower of Babel should be built in which all heretics should be locked up, till they recovered out of disgust with one another." Thus thinking the young man proceeded on the way which had been pointed out to him, and already saw before him the gate in the corner tower of the convent wall, when the merry, teazing sound of girls' voices roused him from his dream.