Klytia: A Story of Heidelberg Castle

by Adolf Hausrath

"I swear to you I know nothing about all this."

"I am sorry for you little one," said the old woman, and at that moment she resembled a snake, taking pity on the terrified rabbit. "You are such a nice-looking girl. Confess before it is too late. Think only, of being hung up by a rope and heavy and heavier weights being fastened to your small feet. Oh! dear, oh! dear, how that hurts. None as yet have been able to hold out. Think of the suffering and disgrace inflicted upon you!"

Lydia raised her apron which she bit in mute despair. Her eyes turned pale with horror. She sat there an image of grief, of madness. She heard no longer what the old woman kept repeating. A cold shiver shook her body backwards and forwards. The executioner now himself stepped up and made indecent remarks to her, which however she did not understand. At last the old woman got angry and seizing hold of her by the hair, hauled her up and down: "Confess, you obstinate creature! When did you attend the black mass?" But Lydia felt it not. "Don't make such a to-do," said the executioner. "When she is hanging from the rope, it will all come back to her." Lydia gazed vacantly at him. "Were you not already known as the bewitched maiden at the Stift?" cried he furiously.

"Yes I was, I was!" sobbed the poor child overpowered by grief and fright. "See, she has confessed," said the executioner. "Get out, I have enough of this whimpering." And he aimed a blow with his keys at his wife, who obediently quitted the room. Lydia was once more alone, faintness and weakness deadened her pain, and as the intense heat in the small cell diminished owing to the torrents of rain which poured down outside, she fell asleep. When she awoke with a start out of her lethargy, she heard the bells of the Holy Ghost chime the midnight hour. Her head felt dazed. The examination made by those two horrible creatures entirely confused her mind. The confidence with which she had been told that she was guilty, had bewildered her. She could herself scarcely think, but that through her own guilt she had fallen into such profound wretchedness. Her going to the Holtermann now appeared to her in the light of a terrible crime. Had she not in fact sat near the witch, and perhaps the Wicked One had obtained power over her. Had she not once dreamt, that she was travelling through the air from the Holtermann to the Castle, and had plainly seen the illuminated windows of the town before her? What, if she in her sleep without being aware of it had through the power of the Evil One, been in reality obliged to ride to the witches' meeting, as many walk about in their sleep during the full moon and on the following morning know nothing about it? Had she been the means of producing the storm, through the Devil putting it into her head to draw water out of the brook at a momentous hour of the morning? Who could know what the relation of this deep well was to the clouds? And had she not in reality spoken in a very heedless manner, when she told red-headed Frances that she had plucked Felix's rose out of the stone wreath? And what a terrible crime it was that amidst the thunder and lightening, as God's wrath was plainly addressed to her, she lay in the arms of the artist and allowed his embraces! A terrible fear came over her. Dreadful thoughts confused her more and more. As the clock struck one Lydia was convinced, that she was a witch and determined to confess everything, in that way she might escape the rack. She knew that she was lost, but she would not suffer herself to be tortured. "If they will only not ask me who taught me magic, and commanded me to go to the Holtermann," sighed the poor child. And she depicted to herself, how finally they would get out of her that it was Paul. Her terror became boundless. And now it struck two. Then she felt, that these dreadful thoughts would kill her, if they lasted much longer. In her distress she began to repeat all the prayers, hymns and texts, that she knew, and although convulsive fear weighed down her heart, she nevertheless became more tranquil by this means. At last day broke, but no one came to her. She heard how life began in the town. She could explain every sound. The streets re-sounded as ever with merriment. She heard the boys calling, whistling, singing; she heard the barking of dogs, the rattling of carriages, the creaking of wheels, the sound of horses' hoofs, everything went on as usual and no one thought of her grief. A feeling of great bitterness took possession of her young heart. Thus little was the friendship of men worth, in the which her childish mind had so happily believed. How many poor had her father helped! "What would we do, without the Counsellor?" how often had she heard these words from Counsellors, beggars, the healthy, the sick--and now their deliverer sat in the Great Tower, and the people, could laugh and chat, and the boys whistle that insupportable song about the all beauteous Gabrielle. About her also they seemed not to care, and yet they had ever smiled kindly on her as they called her the pretty Lydia. Felix, he indeed would think of her, but then she had seen him lying pale with a bleeding head on the stairs, as they tore her away. Perhaps was he dead, perhaps he also lay in some prison. And the Kurfürst and his Princess, who always used to address her so graciously, when she stood on one side to curtsey to them, could they give her up under their very eyes to these men! She gazed sadly up through her barred windows at the deep blue September sky, in which the long silver summer threads waved about finally to be caught in the bars. Till yet she had childishly imagined her father and herself to be important items in the minds of their fellow citizens. Now it dawned upon her, that not only she herself with her youthful beauty and her cheerful smile, but that even her serious father with all his ability and wisdom could be taken away from this bustle, and the people would live on just the same as ever. With one blow were all the lights extinguished, in which the world had to her unexperienced youth formerly shone. The childish expression was gone from her face, one single hour had stamped in its place the earnest look of experienced womanhood. But there was nothing dark in this seriousness. Her gentle, modest feelings had now obtained the victory over the bitterness of her heart. "Hast thou not also," said she to herself, "made fun and noise, sung and laughed in the Castle gardens without giving one single thought to the poor prisoners languishing behind their iron bars? Could any man rejoice in life for a single instant, if he were always thinking of those to whom at that instant some wrong were happening ...? But for the future I will think about it. I will strive daily, that as much happiness may be around me, as I can obtain by opposing sorrow, I will take the part of all who may be innocent and defend them, even if appearances be against them, and will tell them what happened to me. But art thou indeed innocent?" Again she returned to the question of the previous night, as to whether she were really guilty? But the dark thoughts of night time disappeared before the clear light of the September sun, which poured like gold within the prison window. She had acted foolishly, carried away by passion, but had done nothing which deserved such a punishment. And then the hope returned to her, that God who had freed her from the dark vault of the Michael's church, when no one knew about her, would not surrender her up now to the Wicked One, in whose power she had fallen through that wicked nightly expedition. Perhaps old Father Werner would find the right way to her again, he, or Frau Belier, or the Lady Abbess, or the Kurfürst himself. With a fixed determination to strengthen herself for the struggle she was about to undergo, she ate some of the bread which lay near the window, and drank some water out of the pitcher near by. Then with full confidence in God she looked out through the bars, and felt convinced that the Miller from the Kreuzweg would come again this time with his redheaded boy, or some other faithful friend. Nevertheless a shudder crept over her when she at last heard at mid-day a heavy tread, and the key turned creaking in the door. The dirtily dressed one-eyed old woman entered. This time however she asked cringingly and submissively how it fared with the poor young lady. However little inclined Lydia might feel to heed the ugly creature, she was certain that something must have come to pass which the old woman kept back. Finally it came out, the Kurfürst had ordered Lydia to be taken to the Great Tower and therefore she must bid farewell to the poor prisoner, for whom she felt so hearty a sympathy. The young lady would, she hoped, mention how kind and gentle she and Master Ulrich had been towards her. Her trial was not yet at an end, and if she blackened Master Ulrich's character, he would repay her for it should she ever be brought to the rack. Lydia let the horrible woman talk on without herself answering. But when however her faithful Barbara appeared, she sank into the arms of her old nurse and comforting tears dispelled half her sorrows. The old nurse was herself half dead through fear, for Master Ulrich had likewise explained and impressed on her, that she also might likewise be accused of being a witch, for not preventing her young mistress from practising witchcraft. Still trembling with fright the faithful soul had great trouble in arranging her young mistress' dress and hair. Finally Lydia was ready and after that Barbara had thrown a scarf around her, she prepared to follow the police-officer to the Castle. At the door stood Master Ulrich with his bundle of keys: "In three days, young lady," he said with a wicked look, "we shall meet again. The commission on witchcraft always holds its sessions here, for the gentlemen can never do long without me, so beware of your tongue. And even if you escape this time, remember, that the next person that I string up to force out the names of her accomplices, may name you; sooner or later will you be here again. I say nothing more, you will yourself know what is best for you."

Klytia passed on in silence. Outside the officer looked at her in a kindly manner. "Be of good cheer, young lady," he said. "His Gracious Highness has ordered that you should be taken to your father in the tower, and I think the good Counsellor will himself not remain long there. Our Lord God can permit the ravings of the Italians for a while, but in the end he will not abandon his own." Lydia sobbed. "Only to be with my father, that is all that I wished yesterday." If no other way of coming to him existed than through the Witches' Tower, then her terrible night was none too high a price. She dried her eyes with the determination to be truly grateful and content, and not to mention her terrible experiences, in order not to add to the sorrows of the already overwhelmed man.

At the same moment that Lydia wearied and ill, tottered up the Schlossberg, mostly leaning on the arm of her still weeping servant, Erastus sat in a well-secured room in the Great Tower and gazed out through his barred window at the ruins of the old Castle, now gleaming in the golden rays of the evening sun. There the Count Palatines had been wont to hurl down the eastern or western slopes of the Jettenbühl their spiritual or mundane enemies. They had ever boasted that they feared neither the curses of the Bishops nor the excommunications of the Popes. Now they lived in the proud Castle lower down, but the enemy had crept within the fort itself, secret Jesuits and calvinistic notables sowed the seed of Church dissension and formed the strange combinations which finally must ruin the country. "One side has never recognized religious peace, the other does its best to hinder its blessings within the Palatinate, the end can only be blood and misery? Thou beauteous Palatinate! what Guises and Albas await thee. It seems to me as if I heard the roarings of the cataract which hurries our little bark to its destruction, whilst the crew quarrel among themselves." Such were the thoughts thronging through the imprisoned statesman's head, as he looked out over the tops of the chestnut trees at the old Waldburg, the former cradle of the Counts Palatine. His hand played in the meantime with a bundle of papers, whose official character was marked out by the blue and white tape of the Chancellory of the Palatinate. Eventually he opened and read them. An ironical smile played over his lips. "General of the Arians and Commander-in-chief of the Devil's hosts, I am advancing in my career of Antichrist;" and he seized a pen as if to write an answer to this bill of indictment; but rage suddenly overmastered him, he flung pen and papers aside. What was the use of answering people who were determined to destroy him, and made use of forged letters to that end? The former friendship of the Kurfürst would protect him from the rack and ill-treatment, of that he might be certain. His enemies would be well satisfied by getting rid of him. Banishment would be his fate, he thought. To create attention by heavy punishments and severe laws was against the interests of the Church council owing to the weak condition of Calvinism in Germany, and the physician to whom the whole world was open felt reconciled at beginning his travels anew. With a feeling of mingled contempt and disgust he threw down the papers after throwing a cursory glance over them. He, the faithful Zwingliite, to be accused of having founded a conspiracy to make the Pfalz unitarian, or as the Gentlemen of the Church Council chose to express it, mahommedan. "Because all the heads of the Unitarians, Servetus, Blandrata, Socinus, were physicians, naturally the physician Erastus must be one also," he laughed mockingly to himself. "Parsons' logic of the Hogstraten School! Be contented with my head, but the satisfaction of praying for mercy, will I never grant to either Olevianus or Ursinus.... They wished to extract on the rack from the weakminded fugitives, an account of my opinions," he added shaking his head, "thus are they all these lowly men of God."

As far as he himself was concerned the matter was at an end, but anxiety for Lydia weighed heavily upon him. How could his child, the darling of his heart, have been drawn into all these horrors? Through what devilish arts could the Jesuit have succeeded in enticing the modest child to the cross-roads at a late hour of the evening? This childishly heedless action might have the most severe consequences for his child should the witches name her as one of their number, and what a satisfaction it would be for the members of the Church Council to apply Church discipline on Erastus' daughter and place her before the entire congregation on the penitent sinner's stool. Perhaps that might not be enough. What if the old Sibylla, whom he had often harshly rebuked for dabbling in medicine, revenged herself on him, by likewise accusing Lydia of sorcery. He did not dare carry on such a train of thought. Such an accusation was a double danger to such a beauteous girl as Lydia. This was the cause why sleep fled from the prisoner, why he restlessly paced up and down his room from morning till evening, why he had petitioned the Kurfürst through the jailer of the prison to suffer him to have an interview with his daughter. As sadly watching the sun setting behind the empurpled mountains near Worms, he was aroused out of his sad reveries by a noise in the corridor. A key turned, the door was opened, and the jailer appeared with his servant, to make ready another bed in the room. "What means this," said Erastus astonished.

"Another prisoner is to be brought here," replied the attendant surlily.

"I am to be spied upon by night and by day," thought Erastus. "Herr Hartmann may remain tranquil on that score, I am not in the habit of talking in my sleep. But Heaven only knows what witnesses they may be instructing in this wise against me. Forged letters do not seem satisfactory. It would be more comfortable for these gentlemen, if I confessed mahommedanism by word of mouth. Let it be--even in the account of the Passion it is said 'and they brought false witnesses against Him, but not even so did their witness agree together.'"

Again steps approached. His fellow prisoner was being brought in. Erastus turned to the window. His intention was not to exchange a word with the man who was placed as a spy upon him; thereby it would be all the harder for the members of the Council to twist his opinions, if he had not wasted a single word on their spy.