There was a temporary calm, and I bethought myself that I would go to church—not to the Protestant church attended by the English clique—heaven forbid! but to my favorite haunt, the Jesuiten Kirche.
It was just the hour at which the service would be going on. I asked Stella in a low voice if she would not like to come; she declined with a look of pity at me, so, notifying my intention to Frau Mittendorf, and mildly but firmly leaving the room before she could utter any remonstrance, I rushed upstairs, clothed myself in my winter mantle, threw a shawl over my arm, and set out.
The air was raw, but fresh, life-giving and invigorating. The smell of the stove, which clung to me still, was quickly dissipated by it. I wrapped my shawl around me, turned down a side street, and was soon in the heart of the old part of the town, where all Roman Catholic churches were, the quarter lying near the river and wharves and bridge of boats.
I liked to go to the Jesuiten Kirche, and placing myself in the background, kneel as others knelt, and, without taking part in the service, think my own thoughts and pray my own prayers.
Here none of the sheep looked wolfish at you unless you kept to a particular pen, for the privilege of sitting in which you paid so many marks per quartal to a respectable functionary who came to collect them. Here the men came and knelt down, cap in hand, and the women seemed really to be praying, and aware of what they were praying for, not looking over their prayer-books at each other’s clothes.
I entered the church. Within the building it was already almost dark. A reddish light burned in a great glittering censer, which swung gently to and fro in the chancel.
There were many people in the church, kneeling in groups and rows, and all occupied with their prayers. I, too, knelt down, and presently as the rest sat up I sat up too. A sad-looking monk had ascended the pulpit, and was beginning to preach. His face was thin, hollow, and ascetic-looking; his eyes blazed bright from deep, sunken sockets. His cowl came almost up to his ears. I could dimly see the white cord round his waist as he began to preach, at first in a low and feeble voice, which gradually waxed into power.
He was in earnest—whether right or wrong, he was in earnest. I listened with the others to what he said. He preached the beauties of renunciation, and during his discourse quoted the very words which had so often haunted me—Entbehren sollst du! sollst entbehren!
His earnestness moved me deeply. His voice was musical, sweet. His accent made the German burr soft; he was half Italian. I had been at the instrumental concert the previous night, for old association’s sake, and they had played the two movements of Schubert’s unfinished symphony—the B minor. The refrain in the last movement haunted me—a refrain of seven cadences, which rises softly and falls, dies away, is carried softly from one instrument to another, wanders afar, returns again, sinks lower and lower, deeper and deeper, till at last the ’celli (if I mistake not) takes it up for the last time, and the melody dies a beautiful death, leaving you undecided whether to weep or smile, but penetrated through and through with its dreamy loveliness.