Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg Castle

by Adolf Hausrath

CHAPTER VIII.

The following morning a stormy scene took place in the private study of the Kurfürst in the new court. The Magistrate Hartmann Hartmanni was seeking refuge behind a leather backed arm chair to protect himself from the wrath of the Count of the Palatinate who pressed forward towards him, upbraiding him with flaming countenance.

"You shall set them all free," cried the thick set Kurfürst, "all. Do you understand?"

"If Your Gracious Highness would only remember," replied the obdurate Magistrate, "how great a calamity has come over the Palatinate through this pestilence. And now should those who have been proved in a certain measure to have introduced this pestilence through their devilish arts be set free, among their fellow creatures, the first who would fall victims to their wrath would be Your Highness' faithful servants who considered it necessary to oppose these sorceresses."

"Who has told you that this pestilence is the work of witchcraft?" replied the Kurfürst. "Only yesterday the Church Council reported to me in a long document--there it lies--that it was plain to all the world, that as a punishment for the blasphemies of the Arians in Ladenburg and Heidelberg the plague had broken out in Petersthal and Schönau, to-day witches and magicians are accused of being responsible for all this misery. Whom shall I believe, you or Olevianus?"

Herr Hartmann Hartmanni assumed a wise and deliberative expression. "Will Your Highness only consider that the one does not exclude the other. Through the veritable belief in God and the grace of God which accompanied this, the art of the witches was restricted and their hand enfeebled, scarcely however had Sylvanus, Neuser and Erastus tainted the land with their secret blasphemies, than the Almighty withdrew his countenance, and then the allies of Satan had free play. Or is it not then a fact, that immediately after the disclosure of the heresy, the magic arts came to the fore?" The Kurfürst shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "If Your Grace does not believe me or the Church Council, the Juristical Faculties of Heidelberg or Tübingen might be called upon for a legal opinion."

"Go to the Devil with your Faculties," roared out the old gentleman, "who every year send hundreds to the stake for the Judas reward of twelve golden gulden. Where do you think the bones of Luther and Calvin would be to-day, if the Kurfürst of Saxony and the Honorable Council of the town of Geneva had requested the legal opinion of the University Jurists? Under heaven I know of no more venal people than those who live by their legal opinions."

"Then I can only think of the witch's test."

"What sort of test is that?"

"Let the young woman be thrown into the Neckar, should she rise to the top she is clearly a witch. Should she sink, then is she innocent and escapes prosecution."

"And if she drowns or dies of fright, do you bring her back to life again," asked the Kurfürst with an angry look.

"Then is nothing to be done," said the Magistrate surlily.

"If the herb picking woman was found with devilish vermin," said the Kurfürst, "sitting near the Holtermann or by the Linsenteich at a time of night when people are usually asleep, you can try her and execute her, but Erastus' daughter is to be set free to-day I tell you."

"Would Your Grace only condescend to take into His high consideration, what an evil impression would be produced, if the old witch were tried for being at night on the Kreuzweg, and the young woman known to be guilty of the same crime were set at liberty?"

The Kurfürst once more approached so close to the Amtmann that that worthy again withdrew behind his arm-chair. "I know you, Herr Amtmann," he said peremptorily. "I know of your amours in Ladenburg and Mosbach. You are lusting to proceed against a well made woman, to cut the hair from her body and do anything else which may come into your head, because you say, that otherwise the Devil has the power to strengthen her against the rack. You shall not touch with one of your fingers the pious child, whom I have seen praying every Sunday in my church, and I have often felt edified by her hearty worship, even when the discursive sermons of your spiritual friends were sickening to me. Is this harmless sweet young creature to be considered a devils' harlot? Who can be safe, if such a child is tried by torture?"

"But it has been proved," replied the Amtmann with unheard of obstinacy, "that this very maiden with her hypocritical appearance of virtue, used to walk about at night on the cross-road which of the whole neighbourhood has the worst repute. Three young men from Neuenheim, named by the old woman have confirmed all her statements. They have sworn upon oath to having met on a fine June night of this year Erastus' daughter on the Holtermann and to have wished to lay hold of her, the Maiden however floated on before them like a will-o'-the wisp, and when they thought to have seized her near the haunted ruins of the fallen Chapel she melted into thin air and disappeared."

The Kurfürst looked at the Magistrate with astonished eyes.

"I greatly fear," continued the latter, "that we have to do with one of those sorceresses known to the ancients as Empusæ. A gentle exterior attracts all the men to her; wherever she has been she has bewitched all hearts by her supernatural beauty. She resembles the witch of Bacharach with her golden hair, and perhaps she received like the latter this beauteous adornment as a reward for the homagium she paid to Satan." The Kurfürst made a displeased gesture, but the Amtmann continued: "Very suspicious things are said about her. Her maid has been heard to say among other things: that her young Mistress had a green dress which the longer she wore, the better it looked."

"Rubbish."

"In the Stift where I, privately of course, made some inquiries, she bore the name 'the bewitched maiden.' My instructions point out to me, to take particular notice of any who may be considered by public opinion to be concerned with magic. She has also often rocked herself backwards and forwards on the pump-handle, as does the witches' fiddler whenever he plays by the Saubrunnen for the witches' sabbath."

"Twaddle," grunted the old Prince.

"Indicium follows indicium. I have conducted the inquiry with the greatest care. Will Your Grace try and remember what a terrible whirlwind we had on the 4th hujus, which tore slates off roofs, blew down chimneys, and tore up the oldest trees in the park. The Morning of that very day, the young maiden drew water at sunrise out of the well, though she had previously passed the spring, where she could have provided herself more easily. This drawing was nothing but a pretext, to throw three sage-leaves into the well, which together with the repetition of a terrible incantation always calls forth a storm. On her return from this criminal walk she had a blood-red rose in a glass; the Castellan's maid, 'carotty Frances' she is called in the Schloss, asked her where she had picked the flower as no roses grew in the Court-yard, and what answer did the young damsel return? 'From the stone-wreath over your door'!"

"Servants' tales," said the Kurfürst disdainfully. "Of what use would a storm have been to her which broke in her fathers' windows as well as mine."

"She sought an opportunity of alluring the architect Laurenzano. When the storm burst she enticed him from the rocking scaffolding into her room, and got engaged to him at the very hour, when other Christian maidens were kneeling in terror at the sulphurous lightning and hellish stormwind."

The Kurfürst became pensive. "That was told me by Erastus himself," he thought. "The two circumstances look badly. Who are the three witnesses, before whom she rendered herself invisible?" he then asked of the Magistrate.

"The sons of the landlord of the Rose and Maier the Miller's apprentice from the valley of the Siebenmühlen."

"Bad characters, are they not?"

"Well that is as one thinks. The miller's apprentice is a hard-headed and daring fellow who fears neither witch nor devil. He has even overheard the black mass, performed near the white stone."

"What, do witches' conventicles take place in my dominions?" asked the Kurfürst horrified.

"Not two hours from Your Grace's own town." The eyes of the stout Count became larger and larger. "Your Highness knows the desolate table land above the spring of the valley of the Siebenmühlen; a barren mountain ridge, covered with thistles, blackberry bushes and strewn over with rocks. 'The white stone' is the name of this desolate spot. Near to this begins the wood which intersects the higher road. It was on Midsummer's day, the miller's man was tracking a stag, when his eye caught sight of a small fire. At first he thought it was a fire lit by the laborers, but on approaching he beheld two huge flames as high as towers, which illuminated the whole mountain with a red and yellow glow, and higher up on the lofty Nistler he beheld a similar yellow light. Around the fire he saw men and women dancing whose black figures, whenever they approached the red fire, stood plainly out so that their shadows reached right up to the crouching man. A curious sound of bells, which tingled to a great distance, whistles and viols sounded horribly exciting in the still night air. He had to restrain his legs forcibly, so that they should not dance likewise, said the man. Through the bushes he perceived masses of people crawling about in the dark. Suddenly the bush before which he stood was brilliantly illumined and he perceived a devil carrying a child's arm as torch, whose fat fed the flame. Behind this monster, who luckily for him had his back turned, came masked and veiled persons. He recognized no one. He felt so frightened that he threw himself full length on the ground and crawled slowly back to the wood. For the remainder of his life, added the young man, who has not been pampered by the Landsknechte and poachers, he will never forget the fright which he felt when creeping back. The moon shone pale, as if horrified at the atrocities which it saw. On the beech near a crossing, which had stood empty as he came, now sat a devil beating a drum with a fox's tail, so that it sounded afar off: tup, tup, tup. Behind him in the branches sat the fiddler, and played a dance as if to allure the crowd to this place. As the boy crawled past muttering a prayer, without suffering himself to be enticed, a devilish peal of laughter burst behind him and re-echoed through the entire valley. On the Holtermann were likewise four young witches, riding on brooms, and having lights stuck in their backs as signals for the others. He also heard the row of whistles, drums, galloping riders, and ungreased axles. On stoves, pitch-forks, brooms and sticks, in carts drawn by cats, or riding on hares, an army of witches swept close past him. Yelping dogs ran between his feet, and the wings of owls touched his cheeks, so that he lay there as dead through fright. On creeping further he saw in a ditch a well dressed company of ladies and gentlemen sitting round a table, on which smoked a splendid roast joint and game. The Devil himself sat at the head of the table and amused the company by playing the bagpipe on a black cat. He wore blue and red striped stockings, had a red beard, and a pointed hat adorned with colored ribbons and cock's feathers. As he looked with his fiery eye on the interloper, the latter called out in his fright: 'Oh thou holy and blessed Trinity.' The earth immediately gave a shock, so that the man fell down stunned and then only became aware that he was sitting close to a dead white horse and the bones of the hanged. The field-fare now crept about the ditch in the shape of toads, and the company disappeared in the bushes weeping and sobbing. From that place to the valley of the Seven Mills nothing more occurred, except that he met three hares, one of which had a body like that of a goat. Rendered more courageous the man called out to them: 'Stop thou sorceress in the name of the triune God.' On that they turned into three black ravens and flew away towards the Heiligenberg. Since then the Devil gets out of Maier's path like a whipped cur as he himself told me."

The Magistrate learned in humanity stopped talking and wiped the perspiration from his brow after this poetic harangue. At first the Kurfürst had looked astonished, then doubtful, and finally listened with scarcely concealed disgust. He now said deliberately: "If anything takes place in the least resembling what you have described, it is, because you permit so many lewd fellows to gather here, who are a torment to all honest people, jugglers, magicians, peddlars with pictures, quacks, spirit-conjurors, exorcists, and other vagrants who travel backwards and forwards between the Bishoprics on the Main and Rhine, a loose lot, who if they are not in league with the devil, are not very far from it."

"Vagrants would not mask or veil themselves. Most Gracious Sir," answered the Magistrate with a wise look.

"Well and why should Erastus' daughter have been one of those masks?"

"Your Highness knows of the note, by which, as her father maintains, Master Laurenzano makes an appointment with her on the Holtermann."

"Ah yes; and how does that scoundrelly Priest explain his invitation?"

The confused Magistrate cleared his throat: "I own that I have not as yet questioned him on the matter."

"How," roared the Prince. "You have not examined the chief witness? And in the meantime you destroy the character of an innocent maiden simply on the testimony of an old quean and of rascally scoundrels? You are indeed a model magistrate! Did you know that I have been told, that this Laurenzano caused the child all this misery by pretending he wished to speak with her of some important discoveries relating to her father, and yet you do not examine this man?"

"I wanted to do so," said the Amtmann hesitatingly, "but Pigavetta warranted his innocence. Besides this he alone maintains order in Schönau, so that he cannot yet be spared from there."

"Pretty justice," thundered out the enraged Prince. "You let the most guilty person escape scot free, and in the meantime wish to put the innocent body of a poor girl to torture; that is urgent, that cannot be put off! but the examination of witnesses is not of such importance. Beware, Herr Hartmann Hartmanni that I do not ever catch you again treading these slippery paths."

The Magistrate bowed his bald head with a terrified look. "Before all arrest this Italian Priest," repeated the Kurfürst.

"Herr Pigavetta says...." stammered the Magistrate.

"And I tell you," interrupted the infuriated Prince, "that I am beginning to feel suspicious of this Pigavetta. He smuggled in this disguised Jesuit. He wanted to recommend him to me as a tutor for my children. He informed my wife how thoroughly proficient this young man was in astronomy and astrology, and wanted to talk her over into looking into the future, which does not concern us mortal men, and certainly not young wives with old husbands. If this Herr Pigavetta thinks that he can insinuate himself everywhere in my house, he is much mistaken. And now that's enough. You lead the young girl to-day to her father in the Great Tower. There under the care of her father she will be safe from witches and from you. You have to cross-examine the Priest in Schönau as to his reason for enticing the maiden to the Kreuzweg, and how the matter stands as regards the miracles he is said to have performed in Schönau? If anyone of the whole lot appears to me worthy of being suspected of magic, it is that pale Parson, who occupies himself with astrology," and in concluding this speech the excited Count cast a look at the planetary Deities on the new building, under whose protection dwelt his young wife. "The whole day I have on the new building opposite Justice in stone ever before my eyes. I shall break its image to pieces, if I suffer even but once, Right to be trampled upon in my dominions."

The Magistrate bowed low and left the room with a crushed look. When out of the room he was about to open his mouth to ejaculate an oath, but his eye catching sight of a page, he made a grimace intended to represent a smile, as he descended the staircase.