CHAPTER IV.
A scream of anguish rang through the still convent court-yard from the eastern tower; it rang out to the clear spring sky and through the open turret-window, following the glorified infant soul that had taken its flight to Heaven up, up into the eternal blue; it startled the brooding swallow from the roof, and fearing some mortal evil she fluttered round her nest; it roused the grey monk in the western tower from the books and writings among which he sat day and night poring over his little desk and imbibing living food for his soul's roots from the dead parchment. He closed his book and rose. Meanwhile someone was already knocking at his door. For father Eusebius was the sick nurse of the whole convent; whenever any one was ill in the Abbey or in the neighbourhood he was sent for.
"Come quickly, brother Eusebius," cried the messenger. "The nurse's baby has died suddenly."
Brother Eusebius was not in the least surprised, he had foreseen it; since that night of terror three days ago the little girl had been ill and had defied his utmost skill. Some of the brethren it is true were of opinion that the child was possessed by the devil, because the mother had been snatched from her wicked pleasures, and that it ought to be exorcised; but the wise Eusebius knew better--he knew that the feeble infant had drunk its death at its mother's breast.
He went up to the little room which was lighted up by the brightest sunshine; the poor woman lay stretched over her child's body, her wild sobs betraying the agony which was rending her heart. The other child lay smiling in his cradle and playing with a wreath of blooming cowslips[[1]] that his uncle Conrad of Ramüss had brought up from the valley where he had been tending a sick man. The poor little corpse had its eyes still open and they were fixed on the unconscious boy as if she had something to say to him which her little silent lips could not utter. But the mother understood--at least she thought she understood--and she gave that look a cruel and terrible meaning; for her it had no other interpretation than this: "You have killed me."
Eusebius silently laid one hand on the mother's head and the other on the child's, and with a practised touch he closed the dead, fixed eyes. The sobbing mother was pressing her aching head against the cold little breast as if to break through the icy crust laid over it by death, but he raised her head with a firm hand, and without a word pointed to the open window. At that moment a white dove flew through the clear ether, shining like silver in the sunshine--rising higher, growing smaller, as it soared on rapturous wing through immeasurable space; soon seen no more but as a fluttering speck, higher and still higher--till lost in the blue distance. That was the soul of the dead child--so the mother believed--nay knew for certain. She sank on her knees and with folded hands worshipped the miracle that had been accomplished before her mortal eyes. And so once more the wise old man had been able to triumph over death and misery in that hapless soul by an alliance with Nature which he alone understood--Nature who would utter her divine wisdom to none but him.
But the measure was not yet full.
Out on the moor the lonely outcast husband was rocking in his canoe by the shore of the lake; his nets lay idle at the bottom of the boat and he sat sunk in sullen brooding; it was growing dusk, the lake bubbled and foamed; there was dumb rebellion in its depths--as in the depths of the exile's soul. Cold gusts dashed frothy, splashing waves on to the banks which were as bare--up at this height--as if it still were winter, and which were so sodden with the melting snows that they could absorb no more of the superfluous moisture; the dry scrub that grew about the place sighed and rustled softly as the wind swept over it. The fisherman started from his dreaming, unmoored his bark and pushed away from the shore; but hardly had he got a yard from the bank when he heard a voice calling. He stopped and listened; it was a messenger from the monastery to tell him that that morning his little daughter had died.
The man let go his oar and hid his face in his hands sobbing aloud like a child.
The convent servant called out to him compassionately to "come to shore, to compose himself; that the holy fathers had desired him to promise the afflicted man all kindness, and good wages for the future--" the stricken man rose up in the rage of despair.
"Spare your words," he shouted across the roaring of the waves as they tossed round the frail canoe. "Take yourself off with your hypocritical convent face or I will choke your false throat with your own lying promises. Why should I believe you--how have you kept your word to me? You have stolen my wife and murdered my child. I curse you--I curse the day when you enticed my wife and child within your dismal walls, I curse the day when that boy was born who is the cause of all the mischief. Be advised while still it is time--kill the child before he does any farther harm--an evil star guides him and he will bring ruin on all who go near him. And now get you gone if you value your life."
The convent servant crossed himself in horror and hastened to obey the warning; he was frightened at the infuriated man, standing up in his bark with his fist clenched, with his tangled hair and flaming eyes like a "Salwang," one of those most fearful giants, before whom not mortals only, but even the "phantom maidens" fly.
And as soon as the messenger had disappeared the unhappy man threw himself on his face again and abandoned himself to his sorrow. The canoe drove over the waves--rudderless as the boatman's soul. He did not heed the spring-storm that blew in deeper and deeper gusts across the lake, nor the waves that ran higher and higher as though Nature were dreaming uneasily in her sleep--till suddenly a swift current caught the boat and carried it on with increasing rapidity down the lake. The man started up, and his aroused consciousness made him clutch sharply at the oar, for he perceived with horror through the darkness that he was driving towards the spot where the Etsch[[2]] rushes out of the lake with a considerable fall. But alas! the oar was gone--it had slipped away, escaping him in his anguish without his being aware of it; the loop of straw which had served to fasten it was hanging broken to the hook. For an instant he was stunned, then he gave an involuntary shout for help--then came the knowledge of the danger, the certainty that he was lost. He went through a brief struggle of vigorous healthy life against the idea of destruction--a short pang of terror of death--and then came the calmness of despair, and a still heroism that none could see but God! The lost man sat with his arms folded in the boat, driven down the stream beyond all hope of rescue, with one last prayer on his lips--a loving prayer for the wife he was leaving behind. Far away on the shore he sees the lights of the brethren of St. Valentine--they call to him--signal to him--the boat rushes on, in headlong haste, to its fate. There--there are the falls--a thundering roar--the canoe tips up on end--then it shoots over head foremost, turning over twice in its fall, till it lies crushed and smashed among the stones in the bed of the cataract. It is all over--the swollen spring-flood of the Etsch carries a mangled corpse and dancing fragments down into the valley on its sportive and roaring waters.
"Now indeed, poor woman--you have lost all!"
Father Eusebius was sitting in the nurse's little room, which during the last three days had been to her a cell of torment; he held the unconscious woman's head between his hands and rubbed her forehead and temples with strong spirit of lavender; but her mind was wandering far away in the twilight of oblivion and must return to a consciousness of nothing but horror--torment and to suffering. Her hands moved with a feeble gesture to push him away, her dumb lips parted as though she would say, "Do not be cruel--do not wake me--I am at peace--leave me, leave me."
But though his heart seemed to stand still for pity, he must call her back to life.
At last she was roused; she looked round enquiringly, for all her world was in ruins and she knew not whom she could turn or cling to. Before her on the floor lay her dead husband's clothes--there stood the cradle out of which they had carried away her baby only yesterday to the charnel-house--what was left her in the world? There still was one! Father Eusebius took the living baby from the bed and brought it to her. "It is a stranger's child," he said. "But it is yours too!" and the bleeding heart-strings, torn up by the roots, clung to the strange child as if he were her own--the poor beggared soul accepted it as the last alms of love bestowed upon her by the Creator; for she was humbled in her misfortune, she did not strive, she did not contend, nor did she bear any malice to the child, for all that it had unconsciously been guilty of. "The child is yours," spoke comfort to her heart, and she believed it as father Eusebius himself did when he spoke the words.
"What is yours? Who within these walls may venture to boast that anything is his own?" said Correntian's stern voice at the door.
"Oh! that man!" shrieked the terrified woman and she fled with the child into the remotest corner of the room from the sinister monk who now came in.
"I spoke of the child--to comfort the poor soul, and if you are a man you will leave her that comfort," said brother Eusebius.
"In this house nothing is ours--but suffering and the hope of redemption," the dark man went on pitilessly. "Know that, woman; and remember it at every hour--The venerable fathers have sent me to tell you that you must now wean the child, that the shock of the last few days may do him no harm."
A flood of tears burst from the nurse's large and innocent eyes as she heard this, and she asked with white lips,
"Must I go away then?"
"No, not so long as the child is still little and needs a woman's care. Now, you know the fathers' determination--act accordingly."
And without vouchsafing her a glance he quitted the room.
Calm, clear and gentle, like the moon in the high heaven when the sun has set, father Eusebius stood before the poor woman whose sun of life had set, and in half-inarticulate words she made her lament to him, telling him her sorrow; to him she dared to weep out all the unutterable anguish that would have driven her mad if she had had to bear it alone.
Day after day passed silently away in the lonely turret-room; in a few weeks the fresh handsome woman had grown pale, thin and old--no longer a scandal to the chaste eyes of the brethren. Not a word, not a smile ever came to her lips--she lived only for the child that throve joyously on her crushed affections.
Every day the little one grew stronger and more blooming; a child as sweet and winning as if angels came down from Heaven from time to time to play with him. He was like a ray of sunshine in the gloomy convent and in the closed hearts of the brethren. He could entice a smile from the sternest lips--hardly any one could resist giving him a flower in passing, throwing him a spray, or bringing him some tempting fruit from any more distant walk--a bunch of wood strawberries, an empty bird's-nest, a sparkling pebble--whatever came to hand. "Our little brother," they called him, and the words were repeated here and there in the early morning, when the nurse would sit with the boy in the little cloister garden for him to play on the soft grass-plot while she went on silently with her work, for the little one had begun to run about quite prettily and she could leave him to himself for hours. But indeed he never remained alone; hardly was he down in the garden when all the younger monks gathered round him like bees round a newly opened flower. And they played with him like children and made him all sorts of toys; chains of bird-cherries and little parchment wind-mills and ships--downright waste of time the older brethren called it. The rigid old brother carpenter carved him out little sheep and cows and a little manger with a baby Christ in it. Brother Engelbert, the painter, painted him all sorts of lovely pictures in the brightest colours--the whale swallowing Jonas and Saint Christopher carrying the infant Christ through the water; and was delighted with the child's shouts of joy when he showed some comprehension of one and the other. Brother Candidus, the precentor, cut him out sweetly tuned pipes and was never tired of admiring the boy's good ear.
Thus each did what he could for the "little brother." The hour of recreation was their play-time with the boy and the older men would look on smiling and observe with satisfaction how such innocent and childish amusements could please the younger brethren.
The child grew up in bliss--as if in Paradise. Loved by all, affectionately taught by all, he developed rapidly in body and mind. One above all others bore him in his heart and cared for him with his hands--to one above all others he clung with increasing devotion; this was Conrad of Ramüss, his uncle. However deep the child might be in some new game, however close the circle of monks around him, when he heard Conrad's voice he flung everything aside, got up on his tottering little feet, and trotted jubilant to meet him. It was a striking picture when the tall, handsome man stooped down to lift the boy; when the fat baby arms were clasped round the proud neck with its golden curls and the small round cheeks were pressed caressingly against that noble, spiritual face.
"My sweet angel, the flower on my cross!" he would often say to him, and the child would listen almost devoutly and look before him vaguely with his large brown eyes, as though he already could know the significance of the Cross which stood in the midst of the convent garden to the honour of the Most High.
He would sit for hours in the quiet little garden with the child on his knee and his breviary in his hand; so long as he felt the little heart beating against his own he was content. Now and then it struck his conscience that perhaps he clung too closely to the child as an earthly treasure; and then he would raise his eyes imploringly to Heaven, "Forgive me for loving him--I am bringing him up for Thee--my God." And as the child grew bigger and learned to speak, it was Conrad who with inexhaustible patience taught him his first little prayer; to fold his baby hands and kiss the wooden Christ in the garden when he lifted him up in his strong arms. The little one knew every wound as a cruel torment and would lisp out, "Holy! holy!" while he pressed his rosy lips to the blood-stained wooden hands and feet. But he who inflicted these torments on the Redeemer, to the child's fancy was none other than Correntian; the brethren might do what they would, they could never get it out of the child's head that "the cruel man" had nailed the Saviour to the cross.
"The brat has more wit than all of us put together," said Wyso when he heard it. "If Christ were to come again Correntian would be the first to crucify him."
From that time Correntian hated him if possible more than before, and the child was so much afraid of him that he fled from him crying when by any chance he approached him. Never had he favoured the child with a single word but one of rebuke, nor a look but one of reproach. The merriment of the brethren was in his eyes an outrage and a crime against the rule of Saint Benedict which did not allow of speech "with gesticulations, nor with showing of the teeth, nor with laughter and outcry."
But the others who set the spirit above the letter, and who better understood the rule of Saint Benedict, did not care, but loved the child all the more. Correntian was like a seceder from the rest of the brethren, and the unacknowledged breach between them grew daily more impossible to heal. Here again it was the child that was guilty. "The seed of hell that I pointed out is beginning to germinate," said the implacable man.
Three summers had passed over little Donatus and the autumn wind was once more blowing over the stubble-fields though the midday sun still blazed with much power. The nurse was sitting with the boy in an arbour of blossomless juniper; the brethren were busy in the house with their prayers and duties. She was quite alone; as often as the autumn winds blew, the old wounds broke out again in the saddened heart and bled anew; it was now near the season when, four years ago, she had first left her husband and her lowly home, which was now empty and ruined. "You--you took everything from me--and yet I cannot help loving you, you child of sorrow," said she to the boy, who was playing at her feet at a burial, and was just then placing a cross he had made of two little sticks on the top of a mound he had thrown up. It was a delightful occupation and the child was eager at his play; he decked the grave with red bird-cherries as he had seen done in the grave-yard when one of the brethren took him there; then he swung his little clay mug over it by a string for a censer and sang an edifying litany in his baby way as he had heard the brethren do, and he was so absorbed in his pretty play that he screamed and struggled when his nurse suddenly caught hold of him and took him up. But he was easily pacified and, well-pleased with his foster-mother's caresses, he clung closely to that faithful breast. It was long since she had forgotten the prohibition to kiss him. She clasped him again and again with melancholy fervour and pressed a thousand kisses on his sweet baby-lips.
At this moment, as if it had sprung from the earth, a dark shadow stood between her and the sun, which threw a golden light on the grass-plot in front of the arbour. She looked up startled--again it was Correntian who stood before her. And as if that most sacred feeling, a mother's love, were a sin, she blushed and set the child down on the ground. She was suddenly conscious that she ought not to kiss him--a look of loathing from the monk told her all and she trembled before him. But he only shook his head and said,
"This must have an end. Stay here!" he added in a tone of rough command and quitted her with a rapid step.
The woman sat still as if spell-bound and dared not move from the spot. What misery would he bring upon her now? All at once it had grown cloudy and chill, and yet the sun was shining as before; the grass, the trees--though still green, the sky--though still blue--everything was all at once autumnal and sere as if metamorphosed by a touch. And the child looked to her so strange, so distant, so unattainable, and yet she need only put out her arms to clasp him.
So she waited with folded hands, motionless.
At last she heard returning steps over the path; it was the Abbot and a few of the elder brethren. The Abbot hurried up with unwonted haste.
"You are an incorrigible woman," he scolded out. "We have shown more than due pity for you, we have kept you here longer than was fit although the boy has long since ceased to need you; there was no way left for you to sin--so we thought--and now I hear that even this child is not sacred to you! Why, have I not forbidden you to kiss the boy? 'under heavy penalty,' I said; and you--you despise our orders, you compel the child to submit to your caresses although he struggles with vague misgiving, and you teach his innocent mouth, which is consecrated to God's service, to kiss a woman's lips; you outrage the sight of the brethren who betake themselves to the garden for devout contemplation? It must come to an end, brother Correntian is right. There," he added, drawing a little bag full of gold coins out of his frock, and laying it in her hand, "there is your honest pay. I think you will be satisfied with us, it is a donation worthy of a prince. You may buy yourself a farm and land with it down there near Nauders or wherever you will, but take yourself off out of the sacred precincts of our cloister, for ever."
The nurse made no answer, she stood there pale and dumb; tears dimmed her eyes as if she had been plunged into a lake, and saw everything through water. Her clenched hands trembled so that she had let the purse fall, the wretched price of her life's ruined happiness. Now the last treasure was taken from her, the only thing left--the child to whom she had sacrificed all; this too! "Within these walls nothing is our own but suffering," Correntian had said, she remembered that.
"Take the child with you at once," said the Abbot, and Correntian's bony fingers grasped the child; but the boy cried so heart-rendingly, and clung with such deadly terror to his foster-mother that he had to be torn away from her, and his screams brought out the younger brethren. The nurse leaned helplessly against the pillar of the arbour, and a deep groan broke from her. The younger monks, looking on, were filled with blind fury; their hatred for Correntian, which had been growing for many years, could be no longer contained; they forgot all discipline and obedience, all the rules of their order. They crowded round Correntian like a pack of hounds.
"Leave the child alone, you blood-hound, you spy, who can never leave any thing in peace."
"For shame, reverend Abbot, for listening to him, the wolf."
Thus shouted the angry mob who would listen to no farther commands; it was open revolt. The Abbot and the elder brethren ran about in confusion, not knowing what to do, when above the tumult they heard the voice which had so often restored peace and calm; father Eusebius had just come down from his tower-chamber, and with a rapid glance had taken in the state of affairs.
"You are forgetting your obedience, my brethren. We could not keep the woman here for ever; so it is my opinion that Conrad of Ramüss should take the child into his cell, he loves it, and it clings to him."
"Yes, yes, let Conrad of Ramüss take him," they cried with one voice, and brother Conrad was fetched out from the chapel.
With a glance of infinite pity at the poor trembling woman he took the child in his arms. "Be easy, I will take good care of him for you," he said kindly, and she gratefully kissed the hem of his robe. She took one last long look at the child, the beloved boy that she had nursed so faithfully in those arms which might never clasp him again. She dared not give him any parting kiss, his little hands might never touch her more. The tall monk carried him away high above the crowd of brethren, as if he were borne along on a dark stream; now, now the doors close upon him--it is over!
The woman sat alone under the withered arbour; it was evening, the dew was falling, the wind rustled in the dry branches, and warned her that it was time to make up her bundle, and to find her way--out into the world where all was dead or strange to her. Whither should she go? She knew not, she must wander about alone and helpless so long as her feet would carry her, till she dropped and lay down somewhere or other. She pulled herself up, for so it must be, but she must go upstairs into the empty room whence they had taken the child, just to fetch a few wretched garments. No, she could not do it.
She stole away, just as she stood, her knees bending under her, taking only one thing with her: the little cross with which the child had been playing at his mimic grave-yard. She pressed it to her lips while she shed hot tears. Thus she glided like a criminal through the mist and darkness, out of the little gate where she had so often watched for her husband. But now no loving arm was waiting to clasp her; the Prior called out a compassionate farewell; that was all. One more glance up at the turret-window, and then she went down into the misty valley--a lonely beggar.
Up in the convent a great conclave was held by the elders in judgment on the younger brethren and their criminal outbreak against all discipline. Father Eusebius would willingly have hurried off after the poor forsaken woman, but his duty to his Order kept him here.
"It has all happened just as I said and prophesied," said Correntian. "All the mischief comes of the child. It is the child of a curse, and it will bring the curse under our roof."
Then Eusebius rose, his voice sounded sharp and stern as it never had before, and his eyes flashed round upon the assembly with an eagle-like glance.
"I will tell you," said he, "the cause of the curse that clings to the child. All the conditions of its life are unnatural. Its father's rage was unnatural that made the child an outcast before it was born; your demands on the nurse were unnatural, and the husband, wife, and child have come to ruin in consequence; and the child's life here in the convent is unnatural. That is the seed of hell of which you spoke, Correntian, which you have cherished, and which you will reap--the revenge of outraged nature."