Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg Castle

by Adolf Hausrath

CHAPTER IV.

The sitting of the Imperial Diet being at an end the court of the Kurfürst returned amidst the thunder of cannon fired from the Trutzkaiser to the Castle at Heidelberg, which during the meeting had been only opened for the accommodation of noble guests. The remaining groups of those returning home passed at the same time through the town; they were Polish, Transylvanian and Hungarian Magnates, who had ordered servants and horses to be sent from their homes to meet them in Heidelberg. A contagious disease broke out in the hostelry where the servants had slept, laying all the inhabitants of the house on the sick bed. Erastus was called in, examined the patients, who besides having a violent fever, had their faces, breasts and arm-pits covered with blue, violet and evil looking pustules. The swarthy complexion of the physician turned ashy-pale when he noticed these symptoms, but without saying a word he ordered a spunge dipped in vinegar to be brought, which he fastened to his mouth. He caused his assistants to do likewise, and carry the sick to the Gutleuthaus, a hospital lying outside Heidelberg, which in former days had been founded for the use of the returning Crusaders affected with leprosy. The inns, in which the filthy guests had tarried were closed, the rooms disinfected with alkalines, the beds were burnt, and the doors nailed up. No one was to be permitted to enter the infected rooms for six weeks, with the exception of the medical assistants, who were from time to time to renew the means employed for purification. The population of the afflicted district was severely visited. The matter was hushed up so as not to injure trade, but every one knew that it was the plague, and the unclean guests who had introduced it were shunned. The eight patients lay together in the Gutleuthaus at Schlierbach, six died and but two recovered. These two were inhabitants of the neighbouring villages Schönau and Petersthal. Thoroughly fumigated and provided with entirely new clothing they were permitted to return to their homes. They found it to be to their own advantage not to speak about the malady from which they had recovered, as otherwise no one would have taken them in. But one of them had placed his infected worthless clothing in a bundle which he brought back with him to his home. The other had exchanged the new boots of one of the dead for the inferior pair given him by the authorities of the hospital. Eight days after their return the pest broke out in these two villages with unheard of violence. The mother of the Schönau patient was the first to take the sickness and die, followed by the sister who had watched over her, the clergyman who had administered the sacraments, the women who had dressed out the corpse and those who had attended the burial. The guilty wretch who had caused all this evil, naturally kept silent. He quickly packed up his bundle and left for Schwaben. The same thing occurred in Petersthal. Inhabitants of these villages went from house to house in Heidelberg, offering fruit, vegetables, pine wood, cones, and straw-mats for sale. The physicians reported fresh cases of the plague in all parts of the town. A general fear seized the population. One morning it became known that the court had left for Mosbach. Great was the discouragement of the citizens at this ruthless step, for which the young wife of the Kurfürst was blamed. Whoever could, followed the example thus set. Erastus and his medical colleagues urged the magistrate to stricter measures. All communication with the infested villages was forbidden, the University and schools were closed. The hospital was set aside especially for plague stricken patients, and everyone infected with this terrible sickness was carried thither. A violent thunderstorm which dispelled the evil vapors, aided by a high tide which cleared out the sewers enabled them to obtain the mastery. The Court returned to the Castle and Heidelberg resumed its usual aspect. But even after the disappearance of the epidemic, a victim died here and there of the disease from which they had imagined themselves now free. The cause lay in the continuation of the plague in the neighbouring villages, which in the anxiety to save the town had been neglected. Heart-rending were the accounts heard, but the exertions of the officials were limited to the provision of food, the strictest quarantine being maintained. He who wished to leave to render assistance, could only do so by promising not to return. Erastus finally managed to carry an order through, that the Magistrate and certain physicians should visit the various localities, bringing with them especially medicines, clean clothing, and linen. As the Magistrate fell ill on the day appointed Erastus placed himself at the head of the Commission to see what might be done to abate the evil. Ten of the hospital laborers accompanied them with spades and axes in a second cart. A third cart was loaded with wine, food, lime, and other disinfectants. The physicians found the nearest village still as if all were dead. All the roads leading from the mountains were barricaded and the peasantry armed with hallebards and weapons mounted guard to prevent the entry of the inhabitants of the valleys. The Commissioners were only permitted to pass their carts through with the greatest difficulty, and in spite of the mandate given by the Kurfürst, the peasants declared they would not suffer one of the gentlemen to return that way, as the plague did not seem to trouble itself about princely mandates. They continued on their way through this still valley of death. Here and there a stray beast browsed on the green pastures. The houses of the peasantry above seemed to be abandoned. The Commissioners entered one. A hen seeking for grain in the empty court was the only living being. The doors were broken in, the shutters burst out. Objects which plunderers had not been able to carry off lay scattered on the floor in wild confusion. Further on they found a dead body lying at a little distance from one of the roads to the fields. Where death had overtaken him, there lay the miserable being. The physicians gazed in horror at the wild distorted features of the corpse. "Death caused by the bite of a poisonous viper, or a rabid blood-hound appears in the form of an angel of peace as compared with that effected by the plague," said Erastus. In the next farm they saw a peasant sitting before his door on a bundle of straw. His face was flaming from the inner heat, the eyes gleamed feverishly, he shaded them continually with his hands to avoid the light. "Why do you sit here, instead of being in bed?" asked Erastus.

"I have no one who will bring me water."

"Where are your laborers?"

"Gone."

"Your wife?"

"Dead."

"Have you no one to help you?"

"All are dead."

Erastus fastened the spunge dipped in vinegar once more to his mouth, and entered the dwelling with his colleagues who took the like precautions. The windows were still fastened up, as there was nothing the patient hated so much as light. The commissioners hastily threw them open, so as to dispel by a draught of fresh air the horrible odors. The sunlight disclosed a neatly ordered clean room. The evening meal still stood on the table, a proof, of how quickly the horrible pestilence had seized the various members of the family at the same moment. A child's catechism and slate lay near the window ready for the morning school. A wild confusion was however disclosed in the adjoining rooms. The floors were strewn with rags, bandages, and straw, which proved how terrible the ravages of the plague had been. Two dead children lay in the same bed convulsively grasping each other. On another bed was seen the body of a woman, to which still clung a child, whose waxy little hand hung stiff outside the bed. Erastus himself set to work and with the aid of his assistants carried the bodies outside. The neighboring houses presented the same appearance. The more distant farmyards had all been plundered. The healthy occupants had taken to flight, the plague-stricken had gathered together in the villages, where the houses were nearer at hand, and where they might possibly render each other a little help. All round were heard sighs, shouts of delirium, and the death-rattle. Convalescents and those who were not so heavily afflicted by the infection moved about weakly and stupefied with fever rendering only the most necessary assistance. They brought the bread which had been deposited at a certain place outside the boundary line, into the village, milked the cows, kept up the fires, and buried the dead when capable of doing so.

"Where is the Mayor?" asked Erastus.

"Dead," answered a miserable looking knot of women, around whose necks hung some wretched infants.

"The clergyman?"

"His wife fell ill, he therefore hurried away with his family."

"The schoolmaster?"

"He went off with the clergyman."

"Who looks after you then?"

"No one."

Under these circumstances it was arranged that the physicians and workmen should remain there for a time, dig a grave for the dead, disinfect the houses, and give out medicines and clothes. Erastus however and others would go on to Schönau to see what might be done there. A solitary path in the woods led over the brow of the hill to the village. The farms lying high above on the slopes of the wood had mostly escaped the infection, they were however strictly barricaded, and the inhabitants repelled with hard words any attempt at approach. The first houses in the village they came to, were tightly fastened up, though traces of violence were however not to be perceived. Then they entered the little town, which in course of time had been built around the old abbey. Everything was quiet, but a better order seemed to prevail. Windows were open to admit the fresh air, the sick lay in clean beds, and near them stood a pitcher of water. The rooms were tidy. Pale children went to and fro to help the sufferers. Erastus entered one of the houses, to make some inquiries of a woman who seemed to be on the way towards recovery. He praised the means taken and asked if they were satisfied with their physician.

"We have no physician, none will come to us."

"Who taught you then to air the houses, and apply wet cloths to the head?"

"The clergyman from Heidelberg."

"Who is he?"

The woman shrugged her shoulders and turned her face to the wall. He saw that she did not wish to be disturbed. Outside he met some young men filling buckets with water.

"For whom is the water?" asked Erastus.

"For the sick in the Church."

"Have you turned the Church into an hospital?"

"Yes."

"Who ordered it?"

"The Heidelberg clergyman."

"Where is the Mayor?"

"Gone."

"And the parson of Schönau?"

"Dead."

"And the schoolmaster?"

"Gone."

"Who is it then keeps order?"

"The Heidelberg clergyman."

Erastus became interested in finding out the man, who by his own exertions had worked the miracle, of mustering together a strange parish, and so organizing it that nothing was left for his Commission to do. He entered the large roman church, whose wide spanned aisles had been transformed into well aired cool wards. A long row of patients lay near the walls on beds of straw covered with blankets. The hideous disease showed even here its true character; there were faces who bore the stamp of death, and others distorted grimly by their sufferings, delirious patients who raged, laughed insanely and raved, convalescents who lay stretched out weak and helpless on their beds, many of them wishing that the end of their sufferings might overtake them. But they were all thoroughly cared for, they lay protected from the painful light; in spite of the number of the sufferers the air was pure and continually renewed, without the patients suffering from the draughts. Women moved quietly and lightly hither and thither and provided for all their necessities. The skilled look of the physician took in with satisfaction the picture thus presented to him. He saw a priest kneeling in a dark corner of the Church near a dying man. He heard prayers spoken in low tones, he saw the Catholic sign of the cross made by the priest over the dying man, and could not help shaking his head. "Who can that be?" he thought.

The priest rose, a tall thin figure. "Magister Laurenzano!" cried Erastus in his astonishment. Paul had also recognized Erastus. He approached him in a constrained manner. Then he said "Heaven has sent you to us, Sir Counsellor! It was indeed time that the government should remember us. Please to come with me to the Cloister. Twice did I wish to send in letters and messages, for what we needed, but neither letters nor messengers were allowed in through cowardly fear of infection. Come, come, at last help has reached us."

The look of this young man, who, utterly regardless of his own safety, waited on the sick without using any antidotes against infection, so shamed Erastus, that he secretly placed his vinegared spunge in his pocket, and accompanied Laurenzano to the abandoned monastery which had likewise been turned into an hospital. The young Priest set before Erastus in the high vaulted Refectorium a beaker of wine, and pointing to long rows of bottles and glasses said, "Here are my head-quarters." Erastus joined to his expression of admiration for Paolo's self-denying energy, a few strong remarks on the baseness of the officials who had run away, on the heartlessness of members of families who had left, and on the sordidness of the population.

"Do not say that, Sir," answered Paul, and a gentle tone of sympathy lay in his fine, deep voice. "I have in these days of struggle learnt, on the contrary, that more love exists among us, than I formerly used to think. I have seen proofs of self-sacrifice, which made my heart melt, not only from the mother to her children, or the daughter to her father. Go over there and see these delicate pale women, still for the most part suffering from the fever, who nevertheless indefatigably listen for every impatient groan uttered by the sick."

Erastus interrupted him with an account of how he had found matters in Petersthal.

"Thus was it here also," replied Paolo, "but who is to blame for this state of things? The Prince's government, no one else. The people only needed guiding. Out of shere despair they raged against one another. But it was sufficient, in order to restore confidence among them, merely to tell them that they could help each other, and the apparent coarseness and selfishness gave way to the uttermost self-sacrifice and generosity. Since everything has been organized, since each one knows that he will be found a fitting position for his energies and that he is necessary and indispensable, the people have developed a conscientiousness and faithfulness, which have quite astonished me. I have learnt to think better of your people, since I have led them against this most terrible enemy, than before, when I only saw occasionally the youth of Schönau lounging on Sundays along the country roads."

"But how did you manage to bring about this miracle?" asked Erastus.

Paul smiled but did not answer this question. "Unfortunately we are in want of many necessaries," said he. "Our vinegar is all consumed, all sweat-exciting herbs have been plucked from the mountains; we want lime to spread over the corpses and render the exhalations innocuous. We have now to make large fires, and these are costly and take up time."

"You can have all these things from me," replied the physician. "Here is a list I have made of all the things which we bring you," and he pulled a paper out of his pocket. Paul cast a look at it, then stared fixedly with a look of sudden horror at the handwriting. "Did you write this yourself?" he asked in a tone, as if life and death were depending on the answer.

"Certainly, why do you ask." The priest's hand trembled. "Is that your handwriting?" repeated Paul looking anxiously towards Erastus. The physician did not understand what the priest meant. Convulsively did the young man compose himself. "I will mark out what we require," murmured he absently and left the room in evident confusion. Erastus looked after the strange young man with a shake of the head; he had expected that Paul would have rejoiced at receiving the articles, which he gave gratuitously to the patients.

Once outside the young priest pulled out the physician's list and examined it tremblingly. "There is no doubt," he muttered to himself, "the strokes are the same, as those which Pigavetta caused me to imitate, and Herr Adam, to whom his dictation was addressed, was none other than the heretical Parson Adam Neuser. But he threw the paper before my eyes into the street. Was it the same after all?" and with an expression of despair Paul sank down near the round window of the cloister and gazed gloomily out. "How the vipers of repentance, which for a time had curled up in some dark corner, bite once more? How again the old chain works its way into the flesh?" Should he warn Erastus. He sank into a melancholy train of thought, but could arrive at no determination. At last he shook it away from him. "Let us think of the misery of to-day. Should to-morrow another misfortune arise, it will be time enough. God's mercy does not let every seed of wickedness germinate, which we may have sown unthinkingly, and around me here there is sufficient misery, to requite by good to many, the evil which I have caused to many." Then he arose, so as to prepare himself in his chamber, for the service which he held for the sick every evening in the Church.

The physician wearied by his exertions of the day, remained for a while longer in the Refectorium, and thought over his glass of wine about the young man, for whom he now felt so great an admiration. Shortly an old peasant woman, with white hair and a calm peaceful countenance appeared balancing a basket full of herbs on her head. After setting down her basket, and wiping the perspiration from her brow, she began to pull out and sort the herbs.

"You must be very glad that the Heidelberg clergyman came among you?" said Erastus opening a conversation.

"Glad?" replied the old woman, "it was he who saved us."

"Yes indeed, when one compares Petersthal with your village, one must admire the man."

"If you had only witnessed, how he performed the miracle on the Kreuzwiese, you would speak in quite another way."

"What sort of miracle, mother?"

"You do not know it," said the old woman quickly. "Then you know nothing. You ought to have seen how the man addressed the people all day long but in vain. Those that were healthy packed up, and wanted to escape by footpaths that were not guarded. Wicked ruffians plundered the farm-yards and treated the defenceless owners with every cruelty, the sick lay abandoned in their rooms, in the streets, in the open fields. Then the strange clergyman threatened those who wished to leave with all the punishments of heaven, should they abandon their parish to its fate.--Immediately the first miracle took place. The ring-leader of those about to depart, attempted to reach a footpath by climbing the stone-quarry behind the Sperlingshof, by which one can reach the road to Leiningen, without being stopped. As he reached the top, he stumbled, fell backwards into the quarry and broke his neck. You should then have seen the parson, pointing to the place and calling out to the people with flaming eyes. 'I tell you, that each of you, that attempts this path, will end in this manner,' and he began to call on God, to destroy all those, who wished to leave their brethren to destruction, and to help those who helped their brethren. By the quarry the holy cross still stands, which the Kurfürst ever wanted to break down as being an idolatrous image. The parish however opposed this, as it stood there long before the monastery, and is an old relic. Finally the Holy Virgin and the Disciple were broken off and taken away, but the blessed Saviour was allowed to remain on his Cross. The strange clergyman now turned towards Him, and you should only have heard him, how he addressed Him, it was enough to soften the heart of a stone. The tears streamed down our cheeks. Then he called out as if entranced: 'Thou willest it Lord! Give a sign that thou willest it!' and he stretched both his hands towards the Saviour, as if he wished to embrace him, and called out exultingly. 'See, see, He wills it.' Then it seemed to us that we were dreaming. The stone image raised head and arms and bowed, thrice, four times. It seemed to us once, as if the whole of the sacred body inclined towards us. And then the clergyman turned to us and said: The Lord has said 'yes;' he who now doubts, or refuses, shall be burnt as an heretic, and I shall be the first to set fire to the pile.' Then you should have heard the silence that reigned among the people. I myself did not hear the 'yes' said, because I stood too far off, but there were many there who heard quite distinctly how the stone image opened its mouth and said 'yes' as does a bridegroom at the altar. The clergyman now numbered off the young men: 'Do you get down your spades and dig a large grave in the cemetery capable of holding at least thirty bodies. You,' he said to the older people, 'carry out the bodies and I will bless them so soon as the grave is ready.' Then turning to the young girls, 'do you draw water' and to the older women 'do you purify the houses,' Then he singled out some of the men and women and said, 'you come with me and we shall turn the church into an hospital.' What could we do, his eyes flamed like two fires, his gestures were those of a Kurfürst, or Apostle, or something higher yet. I believe he would have slain with one single word, as St. Paul did Ananias, whosoever had opposed him. By sun-down the village was purified, the sick brought into the Church. Whosoever fell ill, was carried there, in case he could not be properly taken care of at home, and every day the Parson inspects the houses with the old people, to see that nothing is neglected."

"He is indeed a wonderful man," remarked Erastus.

"He is a Catholic," said the old woman in a low tone, "he administers the last unction to the dying."

"Are you sure of that," said Erastus incredulously.

The old woman nodded. "The old faith was however better, it could perform miracles." Erastus stood up. The admiration he had felt for Laurenzano was turned by this one word into disgust. "With the old bogey of the Bare-footed monks and the new Jesuit tricks, he will endeavour to restore papistry here," said the excited physician. "So soon as the Magistrate has the courage to come out here, that stone object of idolatry must be pulled down. We will teach you to perform miracles and conversions." Enraged he stepped aside. He heard through the open windows of the Church the words of the evening service held by Laurenzano for the sick. No healthy person was allowed to enter, but the people stood in groups outside to catch through the open windows the words of the prayers offered. Erastus also approached. He heard how Paul explained the text of the Epistle of St. James to the sick. "Behold, we called them blessed which endured: ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, how that the Lord is full of pity and merciful." As a gentle soothing song sounded the melodious tone of the melancholy sermon from the church even to the place under the old lindens, fanned by the evening breeze: "Behold, we call them blessed which endured, endured even to the end. Our portion is grief and suffering but they are at rest in the peace of God; we rack our brains to find out how to build up once more our fortunes, they have entered into the rest of the Saints, and are concealed in the eternal mansions; we must raise once more our arms in hard work, whilst they lie in a peaceful calm slumber. Thousands of irksome paths await our weary tread, while their feet are in sweet repose after their long pilgrimage." It seemed as if the patients in their couches were now more tranquil. The groans of agony ceased, the cries of impatience were hushed. "Behold, we call them blessed, which endured," reechoed the preacher, "all of those who have gone forth through these portals to the silent chambers of God, have died in the Lord. But we also, who have been preserved for a fresh struggle, let us call ourselves blessed, in that we have suffered; for then only can we say with the Apostle: as we live, we live in the Lord. The destroying angel of God has come in among us like a prophet and he said: I have a word unto you, you children of men! He found you with your sorrows, cares, enmities, idle thoughts, your coarse enjoyments. Then came the dread angel of the Lord, and he asked you old people, what was the worth of that for which you fret, grieve, quarrel, strive after, in the presence of death. He asked you young maidens, what was the value of your ornaments, finery, and beauty, if the next morning the angel of the plague touched you with its finger. He knocked the cup out of your hands, young men, and hushed your lewd songs. He placed the hand of the brother in that of the sister, he made peace between father and son, between neighbor and relation. Therefore let us call ourselves blessed, that we have gone through this time of tribulation. We take our life from God, as a gift bestowed a second time upon us, now let us make use of it as ordered by the Giver, as being at all time in His hand, which He can at all time demand back in case we misuse it. Let us all, who have endured, suffered, hoped, and feared in common, who have seen in common our own snatched away from our hearts and carried out to that place, from which none return, laid in that grave, which will only open at the sound of the last trump, let us be from henceforth as one family, and when the old spirit of strife, self-seeking, greed returns, then do I place you before those graves, and before this altar, which to-day hears your groans of agony, and ask of you, how much all for which you may be striving may be worth, if the angel whom you have seen within the last days in all his dreadful majesty should return? Then will you live in the Lord, then shall we call you blessed, in that the appearance of the Holy Angel has made you wiser."

A touching prayer followed this discourse. Erastus was deeply moved. His wrath was gone. That which he had heard sounded so differently from the magister's former florid tirades rich in antitheses. Then used he to ape the preacher, this time had he preached. The listeners dispersed. As Erastus was slowly descending from the village, Paul caught him up, in order to accompany him on his way home. "You have petitioned the Council to free you from your spiritual functions," said Erastus, "I see however that you have not observed your own proposal."

"I was ill," said Paul, "sick at heart, poor and suffering, I felt that I had no longer any right to teach others, when I sent in that request," and a sad smile passed over his delicate, pale face. "When I however found that I could do some good by preaching, I naturally overlooked my unworthiness. It would have been very wrong under such circumstances to think of one's self. I am thankful to-day to God, that he sent me this tribulation, which returned to my withered-up heart, the power to think of, and feel for the sorrow of others. These times have been a great blessing for me." As Erastus kept silent, Paul continued. "I have also become convinced once more, of the power of the Church offices as a guide to the ignorant. Only by prayer can these demoniacal powers be subdued. In spite of all reason I had been helpless without preaching and praying."

"You are forgetting the miracles," said Erastus sarcastically. Paul looked at him abashed. "Why do you attain your good intentions by deception and evident quackery? How about that miracle on the Kreuzweg?"

The young Priest smiled. "You have been in Bologna," he said, "and have seen the leaning tower, the Asinella:

How Carisanda's tower
Nods towards the traveller, whenever a cloud
Passes over it contrary to its incline,
Causing him rather to seek another road.

This same phenomenon happened to me, when addressing the people. The clouds were being driven by the wind across the blue heaven back of the cross, which, since the rough spoliation of the other figures stands much out of the perpendicular, so that it appears in fact the more the sky is cast over, the more to nod or bend over. No one noticed this. But when I saw that the crowd was deeply affected by the sudden death of a wicked youth, who broke his neck at the time I prophesied, it shot through my brain, to weld the iron whilst it was hot. Thus I made the second miracle quickly succeed the first. You shake your head, but I had no other means to bring the people for their own good under my power. If ever a pia fraus was permissible it was then."

"You are a Romanist," said Erastus coldly.

"I am," answered the young Priest, who seemed to increase in stature. "I shall however leave the Palatinate, so soon as matters are so far in order here, that your officials and clergy can carry on the work." Saying this he stretched out his hand to Erastus as if for a last farewell. The physician hesitatingly gave him his lame right hand. "May it be well with you," he said. But he thought to himself: "from to-day our paths are separate." As Erastus later on reaching a turn in the road looked back, he saw the young Priest coming out of a house with a child in his arms, leading another by the hand. The little ones had apparently lost their parents.