Seven Legends

by Gottfried Keller

Angelus Silesius, Cherub. Wandersmann, Book vi. 206.

There was a certain Count Gebizo, who possessed a wondrously beautiful wife, a magnificent castle and town, and so many valuable possessions that he was esteemed one of the richest and most fortunate nobles in the country. He seemed to be aware of and thankful for his reputation, for he not only kept a splendid and hospitable board, at which his fair and virtuous wife warmed the hearts of his guests like a sun, but he also practised Christian beneficence in the most comprehensive fashion.

He founded and endowed convents and hospitals, beautified churches and chapels, and on every high-day gave clothing, meat and drink to a great number, often hundreds, of poor; and several dozen must needs be seen every day, almost every hour, about his courtyard, regaling themselves and praising him, otherwise his dwelling, fair as it was, would have seemed to him deserted.

But by such unbounded liberality even the greatest wealth is exhausted, and so it came to pass that the Count was obliged to mortgage all his properties one after the other in order to indulge his passion for grandiose beneficence; and the more he got into debt the more eagerly he redoubled his almsgiving and feasts to the poor, hoping thereby, as he imagined, to turn the blessing of Heaven once more in his favour. In the end he impoverished himself entirely; his castle became deserted and ruinous; ineffective and foolish foundations and deeds of gift, which from force of habit he could not desist from writing, brought him nothing but ridicule; and any tattered beggar, whom he might now and again lure to his castle, threw the meagre pittance at his benefactor's feet, and took himself off with scornful words of abuse.

One thing only was left to him unimpaired, the beauty of his wife Bertrade; nay, the barer things looked in the house, the more brilliant did her beauty seem to grow. She increased too in grace, love and goodness the poorer Gebizo became, so that all the blessings of Heaven seemed to be comprehended in his wife, and thousands of men envied the Count this one treasure which still remained to him. He alone was blind to all this, and the more the fair Bertrade exerted herself to cheer him and sweeten his poverty the less he prized that jewel, and he fell into a bitter and obstinate dejection and hid himself from the world.

One day, when a glorious Easter-morning dawned, a day on which he had once been wont to see joyous throngs making pilgrimage to his castle, he felt so ashamed of his downfall that he had not even heart to go to church, and was perplexed how to pass the bright sunny feast-days. In vain his wife, with pearly tears and smiling lips, begged him not to vex himself, but come with her to church undismayed; he tore himself away crossly, and took himself off to hide in the woods until Easter were over.

Up hill and down dale he wandered, until he came to a primeval wilderness, where monstrous bearded firs surrounded a lake whose depths reflected the gloomy trees in all their length so that everything looked dismal and black. The ground about the lake was thickly carpeted with strange long-fringed moss, in which no footfall could be heard.

Here Gebizo sat himself down and complained to God of his wretched ill fortune, which no longer enabled him to still his own hunger sufficiently, his who had once gladly satisfied thousands, and, worst of all, which recompensed his efforts with the scorn and ingratitude of the world.

On a sudden he observed in the middle of the lake a skiff, and in it a man of lofty stature. As the lake was small and one could easily see across it, Gebizo could not comprehend where the boatman could have come from so suddenly, for he had not observed him anywhere before. Enough, he was now there, gave one stroke of his oar and immediately was on the shore beside the knight, and, before the latter could give a thought to the affair, had enquired of him why he turned such a rueful face to the world. In spite of his extremely handsome exterior, the stranger had an expression of deep-seated discontent about his mouth and eyes; yet this was the very thing which gained Gebizo's confidence, and without any reserve he poured out the tale of his misfortunes and grievances.

"You are a fool," the other responded, "for you possess a treasure greater than all that you have lost. If I had your wife, I should never give a thought to all the riches and churches and convents, nor to all the beggar-folk in the world."