Seven Legends

by Gottfried Keller

"Give me back those things, and you are welcome to my wife in exchange!" retorted Gebizo with a bitter laugh, and the other exclaimed quick as lightning. "A bargain! Look under your wife's pillow; there you will find what will suffice for all your lifetime to build a convent every day, and feed a thousand people, though you should live to a hundred. In exchange, bring me your wife here to this spot without fail the evening before Walpurgis!"

With these words, such a fire spurted from his dark eyes that two reddish beams glanced over the Count's sleeve, and thence over moss and fir-trees. Then Gebizo saw whom he had before him, and accepted the man's offer. The latter plied his oar, and sailed back to the middle of the lake, where he and his boat sank into the water with a din which resembled the laughter of many brazen bells.

Gebizo, all in a goose-skin, hastened back by the nearest way to his castle, searched Bertrade's bed at once, and found under her pillow an old, shabby book which he could not decipher. But, as he turned over the leaves, one gold piece after another fell out. As soon as he observed this, he betook himself with the book to the deepest vault of a tower, and there, in the utmost secrecy, set to work and spent all the rest of Easter in turning out an ample heap of gold from the pages of this most interesting work.

Then he appeared in the world once again, redeemed all his possessions, summoned workmen who restored his castle more magnificently than ever, and dispensed benefactions on every hand like a prince who has been newly crowned. The principal of his works, however, was the foundation of a great abbey for five hundred capitulars of the utmost piety and distinction, a regular town of saints and scholars, in the centre of which his burial-place was one day to be. He considered this provision requisite for his eternal salvation. But, as his wife was otherwise provided for, no burial-place was prepared for her.

The midday before Walpurgis he gave the order to saddle, and bade his fair wife mount her white hunter, as she had a long journey to ride in his company. At the same time he forbade a single squire or servant to attend them. A great dread seized the poor woman; she trembled in every limb, and for the first time in her life she lied to her husband, pretending that she was unwell, and begging him to leave her at home. As she had been singing to herself only a little time before, Gebizo was incensed at the falsehood, and considered that he had now acquired a double right over her. She was forced therefore to mount her horse, dressed too in her best finery, and she rode away sadly with her husband, not knowing whither she was going.

When they had accomplished about half their journey, they came to a little church which Bertrade had happened to build in former days and had dedicated to the Mother of God. She had done it for the sake of a poor master-mason whom no one would employ, because he was so surly and disagreeable, that even Gebizo, whom others could not help approaching in a pleasant and respectful fashion, could not tolerate him, and sent him away empty-handed, for all the work which he had to give out. She had caused the little church to be built secretly, and in his gratitude the despised master-mason had with his own hands wrought a remarkably beautiful image of Mary in his spare time, and set it over the altar.

Bertrade now craved to enter this church for a moment and say her prayers, and Gebizo allowed her; for he thought she might have much need of them. So she dismounted from her horse, and, while her husband waited outside, went in, knelt before the altar, and commended herself to the protection of the Virgin Mary. Thereupon she fell into a deep sleep; the Virgin sprang down from the altar, assumed the form and garments of the sleeper, went gaily out by the door and mounted the horse, on which she continued the journey at Gebizo's side and in Bertrade's stead.

The wretch thought to continue to deceive his wife, and, the nearer they came to the journey's end, to lull her and hoodwink her by an increase of friendliness. Accordingly he talked with her of this and that, and the Virgin chatted pleasantly and gave him confiding answers, and behaved as if she had lost all her timidity. So they reached the gloomy wilderness about the lake, over which dun evening clouds hung; the ancient firs bloomed purple with buds, as only happens in the most luxuriant spring-tides; in the thicket a ghostly nightingale sang as loud as organ-pipes and cymbals; and out from among the fir-trees rode the man ye wot of, mounted on a black stallion, in rich knightly array, with a long sword at his side.

He approached very courteously, although he suddenly shot such a ferocious look at Gebizo that his flesh crept; still, the horses did not appear to scent anything dangerous, for they stood quiet. Trembling, Gebizo flung his wife's reins to the stranger and galloped off alone without so much as a glance back to her. But the stranger grasped the reins with a hasty hand, and away they went like a whirlwind through the firs, so that the fair rider's veil and garments fluttered and waved, away over mountain and valley, and over the flowing waters so that the horses' hoofs scarcely touched the foam of their waves. Hurried along by the boisterous storm, a rosy, fragrant cloud, which shone in the twilight, was wafted in front of the steeds; and the nightingale flew invisible before the pair, settling here and there upon a tree and singing until the air rang again.

At last all hills and all trees came to an end, and the two rode into an endless heath, in the midst of which, as if from afar off, the nightingale throbbed, although there was no sign of bush or bough on which it could have sat.