Thus Paul had to begin his stay in Speyer with severe exercises, which were to punish him for something, which still appeared to him as the usual and plain mode of dealing of every honest man. The Rector perceived however that here he must not draw the bow string too tight, and therefore the universally beloved Father Aloysius was appointed as Paul's confessor and spiritual guide, his mild and calm nature soon winning the latter's confidence. Paul did not make any further mention of the annoying event which happened on his journey. He had now learnt that a monk must submit to an injury, without complaint. Other sorrows however tortured him much more than the question whether he or this Brother Antonio had been in the right. As he finally concluded to frankly confess to this worthy Father Aloysius how it stood with him, to lament to him the feeling of emptiness and solitude which weighed him down, to acknowledge the utter absence of joy and hope which had come over him, his confessor made him no reproachful reprimand, but said gently and kindly to him: "Be of good cheer, my son. Many, many a young man has been tormented by the grievous thoughts, whether unendless sorrow and heaviness awaited him, who however stood on the brink of a richly endowed life; thou knowest however, that the morning star rises above all these dismal fogs and lowering clouds." These kindly words distilled themselves like balm over the mind of Paul, and he had never before experienced so vividly the advantage of auricular confession. Father Aloysius became a shining model of one fulfilling the most severe duties. He would become like to this aged delicate man, who devoted every moment of his life to others, in the care of his penitents, his poor, his sick. Unreservedly did he describe in his next report these inward sensations concerning his mode of life. The effect of this confession was a removal to Heidelberg. The Superior found that the young Brother Paul was wasting his life in fruitless inward contemplation; the young wine must fill some new bottle, lest it be spoiled, moreover the peace-loving method of which Father Aloysius was the model, was not to be recommended to the young man in these moments of warfare. So Paul was commanded to accept a call to Heidelberg, which had just been offered to him. "You will have there a worldly-wise superior," said Father Aloysius when wishing him farewell, "the Doctor Pigavetta as he is known in the world, and I fear muchly he has made the world a part of his individual self, still he is more active than I am, and perhaps his unrest will be of more use to thee, than the monotonous intercourse with an old man like myself, who has perchance already wearied thee. Shouldst thou however be in need of inward peace, thou wilt ever be welcomed by Brother Aloysius."
A straight level road brought Paul from Speyer to Heidelberg, and this time he was determined to blindly obey his new Superior, as prescribed by his vow. Modestly did he knock at the door of the house near the Klingenthor. His tranquillity was sorely tried, when on the door opening he found standing before him his travelling companion Doctor Antonio. He had on the same velvet cap and dark cloak, which he had worn on the journey, and noticed with visible complacency the horror of the novice. Paul composed himself and asked in a dry tone to see Doctor Pigavetta. "Go up stairs and you will find him," answered Brother Antonio coolly. A number of spiral staircases led Paul to the upper part of a tower, where he found Dr. Pigavetta's name inscribed on a door. At his knock a well known voice bade him enter, and as he opened the door he saw before him the same man whom he had met below in travelling costume, seated near a table in a long dressing gown, and apparently deeply studying some books and papers. This appearance completely confused him. Which was the veritable Antonio? He bowed his head and waited patiently till this mysterious stranger chose to address him. "Your credentials," said the Superior in a cold tone of command. Paul handed his cypher-letter with trembling hands. After that the former had read it through, he said with an expression of quiet contempt: "I think, young Brother, that our first acquaintance will render obedience to your new Superior easier for all times. You may depend upon it that whenever I give astonishing commands I have my reason for doing so, and you will henceforth be more sparing of your little bit of worldly wisdom. That in Innsbruck it was not for the sake of a few pennies, you might have discovered from a man of my appearance, had you not been a short-sighted bookworm. Now that you have acquired this knowledge through your own wisdom, you will perhaps kindly remember your vow of obedience. In any case we know each other well enough, to accommodate ourselves to each other." Pigavetta was silent and a sarcastic smile curled his upper lip. So this was the same Dr. Antonio with whom he had travelled, into whose care he was again committed. Inwardly Paul boiled over with wild rage, but he would give his superior no cause, to report him again for disobedience. He remained standing in the same humble position adopted by novices before the initiated. The joker in the former soon came again to the surface. Laughing he clapt the young man on the shoulder and said: "Be merry, be merry, little brother. 'Jovial people are worth twice as much as sad ones,' said the Holy Ignatius, and our vows do not require us to hang down our heads. Thus I welcome you to Heidelberg, and first of all you must pledge me." Then the old Jesuit took a bottle of water, poured out its contents into a vessel in the wall, turned on a little tap and immediately red wine flowed out. "Drink to our welfare," he said, as if there was nothing remarkable in all this. Paul sipped, but as the wine was strong and with a bouquet, he put down his half emptied glass on the table and said: "Pardon me, Reverend Father, I am not accustomed to wine."
"As you will," replied the Doctor. He then took the glass, poured the wine back into the vessel in the which was the water, opened the same tap out of which wine had previously flowed, filled the glass with pure water, with which he rinced it and placed it on one side. Paul felt that his head was turning with all this excitement, and as he leant against a chair which stood before him, it began to play and sing. "You feel unwell," said Pigavetta, "go out into the air, and come to the Collegium at the hour of Vespers. I will then introduce you to the teachers." He was thus dismissed. As he however reached the house-door as in a dream. Dr. Antonio stood suddenly before him in his travelling clothes. He appeared to have returned from a walk and said calmly: "It is well that we meet again, here is the gold piece which I borrowed of you at Innsbruck," he then coolly turned his back on him.
Paul stood before this uncanny house with a dull feeling of stupefaction. The wine had gone to his head. He hastened therefore to a clear little brook on his right to bathe his temples and wash this dream away from his eyes. On thinking calmly over the matter he felt very certain that Dr. Antonio had been making a fool of him. The trick of turning water into wine together with the musical chair was too childish to impress him, but that which rendered him most sceptical was the returned purse. As Antonio had not paid the innkeeper at Innsbruck, he therefore owed him two gold pieces and a lot of small change, it might be also, that the money returned to him was a lucky-penny, but previous proofs did not seem to confirm this. The Professor's magic arts appeared to the novice as being of a dubious character. The double appearance in the study and at the door Paul finally explained as being one of those contrivances which he had often seen as a part of his brother's scaffolding works. There was evidently a lift in the Tower, by which Pigavetta could get up and down much quicker than his visitors who had to use the winding staircase. The more however that his superstitious fears were allayed, the more did the feeling of discomfort increase, at being placed in a strange country under a man who bore two names, calculated very inexactly, and either possessed or pretended to possess the gift of a double identity.
Nevertheless the new calling which he had accepted did away for a short time with his melancholy. For a few months all went on well, when however the first winter came to an end, and the mild blasts came over from Italy, the old feeling of despondency once more seized the lonely Youth. The dark thoughts, which had been dispelled by his intercourse with the excellent Father Aloysius returned with twofold power. He wandered about with an inward wretchedness, which crippled his every action. Such was the condition in the which Felix found him, as they met once again after so long a separation.
The malady which had befallen Paul, is better described as an opposition to his brother's health, who had already spent a winter with him in Venice.
Felice had followed Paul to Venice, and the young artist had been full of ardor to make use of a better instruction in that mechanical part of his profession, now offered to him at the Collegio. Soon Felix became almost more thankfully submissive to the order than was his brother Paul. The Architect learnt here the theory of his art, mathematics, geometry, mechanics, without a knowledge of which he had ever remained a mere dabbler. His mind found nourishment in the rhetorical and poetical exercises, and after he had laid aside his chisel and apron, it was his delight and highest joy to hear in the College lectures on philosophy, literature and poetry. He knew little of the inward hierarchic motive-power, and when he by means of the Society's influence received a brilliant offer in the Netherlands, he left the College with a feeling of gratitude, which inwardly was boundless, although he seldom found opportunity of proving it. The exact contrary was the case with his brother. The last moments of his stay in College had been a mere tribulation, for the long years of ambitious excitement began now to tell. Accustomed to applause, even the highest measure which could be bestowed on a novice no longer satisfied him. The clearness in the exposition of science, which delighted his more ignorant brother, appeared to him already superficial; the bands, which his brother did not even perceive, began already to oppress him, and inwardly less subservient to the Order than Felice, so much the more did he wish outwardly to serve it, thinking thus to subdue his inward uneasiness by a galling outward activity, to deaden the feeling of dissatisfaction, to appease the hunger after happiness which had awakened in him. Therefore now in Heidelberg did he passionately buckle to the work assigned to him, without troubling himself much about Pigavetta. After all the time of preparation he found himself opposed to a task, which was important if rendered so by him. For the outside world an inferior member of a theological seminary, he felt himself an historical lever, which was designed to throw an entire people into other religious grooves. The idea was sufficiently phantastic, that a tutor of philology should from this subordinate position demolish the Church of the Kurfürst, but Paolo clung to the maxim of the founder of his order, "should God bid you cross the sea, go you in a ship, but if there be no ship, then cross on a board." In Speyer he had received the order to enter for the degree of Master of Arts at the University of the Kurfürst, which to him was mere child's play. Pigavetta had imposed on him the part of a good Calvinist, for which violent abuse of the Lutherans was all that was necessary. But now his Superior laid before him an order in cypher from the Provincial which commanded him to pass an examination before the Council of the reformed Church pro ministerio, and to take the position of clergyman in Heidelberg. For the first time he hesitated. The better man in him reacted against the hierarchical. He was willing to play the comedy of Calvinism for a time, but he was too proud to make it the purport of his life. Being told that he must become a reformed clergyman so as to better spread the Catholic dogma, awoke in him a feeling of discomfort, even though he shared the opinion of his teachers, that every means was good which proved of service to the highest good, the Church. But the proposition found a powerful ally in the oratory lying fallow within him, and which longed for an auditorium, a pulpit and the applause so thirsted after. He was already weary of explaining the Latin authors to the sleepy scholars of the Sapientia College. With what an enthusiasm did he daily introduce descriptions of the splendor of Italy in his lectures, so as to call forth a home-sickness for Rome in the hearts of the young Germans,--they however yawned in his face. With what ingenuity had he found pieces out of Seneca and Plato, to which he could append quotations from the Church Fathers in support of the Catholic dogma,--the worthy scholars cut large holes in the oaken benches and thought about, not his conclusions extracted from Festino and Barbara, but of a barmaid of the same name in the adjacent pot-house. In lofty sounding words did he glorify the great men of the Church's past, the scholars threw paper balls, or mutually smeared each others' seats with cobbler's wax. Whether Rome, or Wittenberg, that was for him the momentous question of the day, to them it was of much more importance, whether the beer at the Schiltzenhof or at the Hirsch was better. Evidently the heretics were not to be gotten at through the male sex of their hopeful progenies. He was soon very tired of "nipping the horn of the bull," as says the Italian proverb. Then came the unexpected command of his Superior to turn the full force of his activity to the pulpit. Disgusted at a want of success among the sleepy youths, and famishing for praise, the order given him to undertake the ambiguous rôle rendered his decision easier. His inward scruples were soon silenced, as his eloquence received the highest meed of praise. Hearts were moved by the melodious voice of the Italian, by the grace of his appearance, by the charm of his foreign accent, and Paolo's bold dreams of a counter-reformation appeared about to be consummated when he saw, how Sunday after Sunday the ranks of his hearers filled more and more. The intoxication of success deafened the voice of conscience, which warned him, that he was in reality carrying on a very critical line of action, and he was therefore little pleased when the Countess Palatine singled him out for the Stift at Neuburg, and took him away from a career so full of promise. To win back a lost convent already seemed to him as too contemptible a matter for a man of his gifts, and it went almost against his grain to be compelled to learn once more the almost forgotten services of the Mass, and to hold a surreptitious service, which owing to the Kurfürst's hatred of the "damnable bigotry" might cost him dear. Even the confessions of the old ladies, their thoughts, the monotonous relations of their troubled dispositions, their inward sorrows and sore temptations were not quickening to him. Young himself he felt an attraction towards young people. Owing to this very human cause the instruction which he had to impart to the young maidens of the cloister-school, was not so burdensome as that bestowed on the classes of the Sapientia. Fresh and blooming as beauteous buds just bursting from their shells sat the girls and children before him, and listened eagerly to every word he spoke. They understood intuitively what he wished, and in that breath of love and admiration, which met him on all sides, it seemed to him as if his parched soul lived again, and as if feelings awoke once more, which had slumbered since he saw the pale thin woman, who had watched over him during his youth, borne away in her coffin. If when in the College he had rejoiced that his lessons were over, now did he willingly place himself at the head of his young ones, and accompany them in their walks around the convent meadows. Above at the spring house, lower down sitting under the spreading beeches he taught the children to build altars, and wind wreaths. He showed them how the beloved angels vanished through bushes, or looked down as clouds from heaven and bore away a greeting from each child to the Mother of God. At other times he drilled the young ones into forming processions and pilgrimages, teaching them to sing guileless texts adapted from catholic books. Thus could the children play at being catholics without the parents becoming aware of it. It is true that once the miller's wife complained that her little daughter had burnt the name of the Holy Mary in her arm, and that Reinhard had cut the same in an apple-tree. The Domina however calmed her by saying that through that the little maiden would not get a fever, and that the apple-tree would bear a double crop.
The Magister had also quiet talks concerning the welfare of the soul with the older girls, and the maidens acknowledged, that they had never before conceived how bad, how in reality wicked they were, but their heavenly good Magister knew how to console them so lovingly, that they had never been so happy as at the present moment. But how came it to pass that about this time Lydia Erast took to complaining that recently in their games the less agreeable positions were always given to her, and that when playing: "Do not look round, the Fox is about," Clara and Bertha, who used to be her best friends, now struck out at her more spitefully even than did the others? How came it also that the usually so grave Magister came at times out of the class rooms with a happy smile such as had never been seen on his lips when leaving the Sapientia, and instead of reciting his breviary warbled the Odes to Lalage to the astonished beeches? How all this came about, he himself knew not. At first his eye had rested unwittingly on this fair head, as a young teacher when giving the first lesson, out of embarrassment fixes his look on some bright face, a particular pillar, or the corner of one of the benches. Next the bright blue eye fixed on him with touching devotion had attracted him, and soon he had to acknowledge to himself, that he especially directed his teaching to that sweet child, that only for her did he prepare the substance of his discourse, that he only saw her, only thought of her, only heard her answers, though she in no wise surpassed the others in mental acquirements. An indefinite yearning seized him, to see her always before him in all the classes. Thus the misery, which rendered his days peaceless and his nights sleepless began, and cast him into that inwardly at variance, gloomy state of mind, in the which his brother found him.
CHAPTER VII.
To be questioned about a secret, which one conceals from one's self often resembles the fatal word of the fairy tale, which wakes the Sleeping Beauty from her trance, or dispels the dreams of the Seven Sleepers. This horrible word, which had aroused him from his dangerous dawning life, and cast him out into the sharp morning air and glaring light of day, had on this eventful day twice fallen on the ear of the young Priest, and he would not hear it, as he desired not to awake. This was indeed rather the cause why Paolo Laurenzano had received his brother, whom he was in reality delighted to see once again, so coldly and distantly, than the coolness befitting a monk as regards the ties of the flesh. It had not been necessary for him to be informed of the raillery to which Lydia was exposed on his account. As scholar of the Collegio, he had been accustomed to have ears and eyes about him, and had also heard the name "Wegewarte" as he directed his steps that morning towards his apartment, and as he had often met on his way the fair child, and had exchanged a few kindly words with her, he understood the state of the case at once, and turned back through the wood towards the public road without entering his own room. In vain had he endeavored to banish the hideous word "Wegewarte" from his memory. It was clear that every child in the convent knew how matters which he dreaded admitting to himself stood between him and Lydia. Then his brother had bluntly at once hinted at his well kept secret, and he had angrily repelled the hand, because perhaps it alone had any right to lift the veil. With a feeling of unspeakable misery and bitterness he now stood alone on the road gazing at the river. Had he wished to represent clearly to himself the feeling which oppressed him, he would perhaps have thus addressed himself: "Beloved Magister Laurenzano, the pious Fathers in the College taught thee, that deception is a weapon with which a wise man can overthrow a hundred fools. But this weapon is sharp and double-edged, and often wounds him, who carries it concealed about him, even before he can turn it against others. Hadst thou boldly appeared in thy veritable character of Roman priest, this fair German maiden had never gazed on thee with such eyes, and had never stolen thy heart from thee; or if thou wert, what thou appearest to be, a Calvinistic clergyman, thou wouldst go tomorrow to her father and frankly ask for the hand of his daughter, and I know he would not say thee, nay. Whom hast thou therefore most grievously injured by thy deception? Thyself, thyself alone. But why not put an end to these deceits and frauds?" Had the dejected man wished to render himself a plain answer, thus would he have spoken: "I, Paolo Laurenzano, primus omnium of the College at Venice, am too good for the people here. I have not worked day and night and denied myself all the joys of youth, to now throw up my career on account of a fair child. Every Priest wears his nimbus under his tonsure, so was I taught and so I learnt. Of the generalship, of the scarlet hat, of the Tiara was the song ever dinned into my ears, and now shall I end in this excommunicated land, in this dull German town my days as tutor of these unlicked whelps? Why, even the feeling of homesickness for the sunny skies of Italy prevents me from accepting a belief, which would ever prevent my return thither."