SISTER BERNICE IS COMFORTED
Girls and gold are the softer the purer they are.
—Jean Paul Richter.
The beautiful flowers that grew down in the meadow where we laid our Brother Agonius in his chamber of rest, like him were soon gathered up into the arms of the Master Reaper. The enchantments of the long, hot, summer days had worked silently but surely the entrancing spells that now spread over field and forest the glowing vestments of the early fall.
But one day as I was resting at the foot of the venerable oak where Brother Martin had been hastened to his death by that strange woman not many years before, suddenly I heard a piercing shriek from the thick woods back of me and a wild, terrified rush toward the little clearing where I was standing erect, fairly astounded. In a moment more Sister Bernice fell almost headlong at my feet, whence I lifted her unconscious with fright and terror into my arms.
Hardly knowing what to do I stood there helplessly gazing at her sweet face and then at the crown of hair that lay like a golden fleece over my arm, her hood having fallen to the ground, so that I was thankful some remnant of womanly vanity had saved her from the hideous tonsure. But I bethought myself to lay her gently on the ground, her head, a dear burden, in my lap, fanning her face as best I might with my large, toil-stained hands. At last the fluttering eyelids and the gasping breath told me of returning consciousness. At first she opened her eyes and gazed at me wonderingly, vaguely, and once she closed them as if to shut out some awful sight. I rubbed her hands, her wrists, softly smoothed her brow, and spake to her gently, "'Tis naught but Brother Jabez; thou needst not fear him. What hath he done?" and by such soft entreaties and with tender pressures of the hands I sought to soothe her to herself again.
Finally, she sat up weakly, but leaning so sweetly and helplessly against me—it being necessary to hold her safe with mine arms for great fear she might faint again—that I longed to sit there forever. She, however, after a while freed herself somewhat from my too careful protection and said "Nay, my dear sister, my—Bernice, I never had much faith in such wild tales," said I, as she lifted those clear, trusting eyes to mine. And may I be forgiven for this unblushing, unscrupulous lie; for did I not know of the witch of Endor? Many a tale had I heard in the Vaterland of the malign influences of the evil eye, so that now I felt a vague dread I dared not make known to my poor little sister, who had flown to my arms as a birdling to its nest.
"In a moment more Sister Bernice
fell almost headlong at my feet."
Page 128.
"Think not of her more, my sister; she cannot harm thee now, dear Bernice." Upon which boastful assurance she smiled confidently enough and said with a look I would not have changed for a kingdom, "That I know quite well, thou great giant; wast thou ever afraid, Brother Jabez?"
"Never," I responded valiantly, recklessly adding another lie to the record I this day seemed bound to cover with falsehoods.
"Oh, that I could be so brave, Brother Jabez; but I have ever been weak, such a coward; the Vaterchen and the Mutterchen always shielded me as though I were in all truth a baby." Here she paused as if to catch her breath, and then slowly again as with difficulty she said quietly, "I have been growing so weak lately, I wonder what ails me?"
And now my selfish joy, after all these gloomy months without sight of her, gave way to a pain that shot through me like an arrow as I saw how much more delicate and ethereal she had become since that blissful love feast. For a moment my soul was in hot rebellion at all the hardships and privations that made our Kloster life almost unbearable to the strongest and which were so heavy on the frail shoulders of this sweet angel at my side. Something of my wicked wrath must have expressed itself against my will, for she suddenly looked up at me alarmed, crying out, "What is wrong, Brother Jabez? Thou hast such a hard, angry look in thy eyes, such as I have never seen there before."
"I am not in anger, Sister Bernice" replied I, softening my evil looks to fit my words, "merely thinking hard—exceeding hard."
"And dost thou look so stern and fierce and frown so, when thou art lost in great thoughts?" she asked looking up so innocently I felt myself an unregenerate and abandoned soul for such shameless lying. "If thou dost," she went on slowly, "I shall be afraid of thee."
"Yea, sister," I lied again unhesitatingly, "thou hast yet to learn that like many other silly men and women I save my smiles and cheerfulness for those whom I know the least and am sternest and coldest to those that know me and love me best."
"That I know to be false," she cried out, smiling up at me brightly, in such a way I thought I never could let her go; "thou art not a hypocrite. Who in all our Kloster does not know and love our big brother, Brother Jabez, for his kindness, his patience, his tenderness, his charity, for every one, good or bad, and most of all for that mischievous Sonnlein?"
All this sweet-sounding anthem to my unmerited exaltation made me so sinfully happy and irreligiously proud I fairly forgot myself in my foolish joy, so that I pressed the gently resisting girl—for a mere girl she was—to my breast, and was about to insult her trust and purity by an unhallowed kiss, and doubt not I had done this great wickedness, had I not seen too near for me to venture on such indulgence, the form of some Sister straying our way.
I hurriedly urged Sister Bernice—who not seeing the approaching Sister, marveled much at my sudden coldness and failure to complete the sweet enterprise on which I had embarked: "Go thy way, my best beloved sister; think no more of witches; I shall not let them harm thee." And with that she smiled more heavenly than before, but obeyed my will and betook herself to her Kammer, while I passing on in the opposite direction, went straight for that accursed spot where Brother Martin had been the first ill-fated one to see that grisly shape.
But though I searched most diligently, scrutinizing the vines, the brush, the ground, I saw no sign of her, and I was making my way back, sorely puzzled, to the oak, when suddenly I heard a quick rustling among the leaves, such as a bird might make, and turning sharply, beheld, not more than a child's throw, in the gloomy shades of that thick, dark forest, the bent, crouching form of that hideous hag, a wild-eyed, savage-featured she-fiend!
The memory of poor Brother Martin, the terror of my harmless, innocent Bernice, moved me to such anger as never before or since overcame my patience and moderation.
"Thou witch, or devil, whatever thou art," I yelled at her in my passion as I pulled out of the ground a stone as large as my clenched fists, "it is in mine temper to crush thee where thou standest, polluting these holy grounds, thou pestilence!"
With that she rushed forward fiercely for a few steps as though with clawlike hands and fanglike teeth she would rend me to pieces; but now that my blood was on fire, I quailed not, whereat she suddenly stopped, the more especially as my hand was drawn back ready to hurl the stone should she come any nigher.
As she stood there glowering and glaring at me, snarling and choking for the world like some angry beast, I marveled not that the others had been terror-stricken at such a forbidding shape. Again I commanded, drawing up my figure to its full height, "Begone thou vile beast ere I forget myself and slay thee as I would a snake!" and with that I advanced on her, my face distorted with such anger—for the passions are ever destroyers of comeliness—I doubt not she knew, if, indeed she had a mind for knowing, that I meant my threats.
I was but a few paces from her, when she made a spiteful sweep at my face with one of her talons that would have sadly marred me had I been reached, and then, bent and crouching, she slunk away sullenly, still snarling and muttering inarticulate sounds. I stood there until her evil shape was swallowed up by the woods, and then I first knew I was shaking like a leaf and that I was as wet as though I had just come out of the Cocalico.
In this frame I walked back slowly to my Kammer, so sick at heart with forebodings of evil I dared not think of, which not all the joy of having had Bernice in my arms could make me forget.