The scholars were almost ready to drop with drinking, when Master Mathias sent for three Galician Jews, who were shoved into the hall, bound together by their forelocks, their beards sprinkled with pepper. Whenever one of them sneezed violently, and so jerked the heads of the other two, everybody laughed, but the master, whose eyes filled with tears. "In this too, he was master, he knew how to joke with the Jews; ah, he was a wit!" So the feast went on; it was already midnight, and the guests began to sing alone and to tumble against one another; then they brought in the final cup which each one was to empty at a single draught. There was great laughter, for its capacity was beyond any of them. The Lord again murmured to himself; "Ah, worthless set! He could out-drink them all. Nobody knows how, now."
Then at the drinking of this last cup, all the guests recalled some incident of the dead, and toasts were given, one as foolish as another. "All good for nothing. He was the only one who knew how to drink to the dead. The departed souls must have roared with laughter when they heard him. Sit down there, you can't come up to him." The sport ended with a wrestling match. Two or three of the befuddled lords strove together; the stronger was to throw the other under the table; but there was one martial youth whom all together could not drive out of his corner. "Oh, if he were only here; he would master you! He was not afraid of any two! He could even knock my arm down. How many times I've seen him drive out the whole company with a loaded cane." When the scuffling became general, pitchers and plates flew, tables and chairs were overturned, benches broken, canes whizzed through the air, and men with bruised heads groaned and swore; then suddenly a door opened, and in came the procession.
In front, disguised as a woman, came Bajozzo, and behind him a company in monks' cowls, and priestly garb, and all began to sing the familiar song of mockery, which scoffs at monks, imitates the litany of the pilgrim, and ends with a wild dance. That rouses those of the drunken company who can still stand up to join the pilgrims and follow on, through the halls and corridors of the castle, and out of doors, that the people may enjoy the sport. In the great banquet hall remain only those entirely overcome by drunkenness, or by blows, who lie stretched out on the floor; one and another tries to solve the problem how a four-footed beast can stand on two feet, and failing in his experiment, returns to all four. Only the House-Lord sits quietly in his place, with his flask of Polish brandy before him; strong as it was, it was none too strong for him. He gazed fixedly into the glowing wicks of burned-out candles, and let fall sentences that no one heeded. "How many jokes he knew! Even when I scolded him, he would make me laugh. I could not do anything with him, he was so strong. If I tried to beat him, he beat me.—If I wouldn't give him money, he would catch my Jews on the street, and take it from them.—He had a great mind!—He might have been a candidate for the Palatinate—He might have lived to be a hundred years old—He was only twenty-five—and three, that makes twenty-eight,—true, but those three don't count—for he has been dead since then—but why is he dead? because his horse made a mis-step in battle, otherwise he would have killed the other man—is that justice?—A fine world this where the four feet of a horse are the judge—that donkey of a priest says he will turn to dust—my son, dust! It's a lie.—More likely it'll be gold—to-morrow I'll have his coffin opened.—There he lies in the vault of a papist church.—What's that? What did they put him there for? Because he wanted it—he wanted it, himself.—So he could torment the saints after his death—I wonder if he does!—I wonder if he goes and hits Saint Anthony in the nose—I wonder if he gets up in the ghostly hours to hit the bell—What's that!—Is that the sound of a bell? Who heard it?—Anybody else?—Here, Master Mathias, where are you? Did you hear anything?" Nobody answered. The sleeping and drunken snored, the carousers had quartered themselves in the cellar and begun drinking afresh. In the great banquet hall, only the House-Lord was still awake, and he thought that he was dreaming.
The little bell in the church tower rang! Grazian sprang out of his arm-chair—seized his cane—steadying himself against the wall, he made his way out to the north tower, from which he could get a clear view of the church. The moon, just ready to set, lighted up the tower windows, and one could still see the bell swaying back and forth; it had stopped ringing, but the reverberation still trembled in the air.
"What's that? Who's there?" stammered Grazian, and leaned far out of the window. "Stop that noise down there, so I can hear." Another instant, and he could see, too. One of the long Gothic windows of the church suddenly blazed with light. "See there! What's that!" Against the bright window stood out the shadows of human figures. They vanished, appeared again and raised their hands. Grazian gathered all his strength that he might shout in the fulness of his rage at the ghosts—"Who are you? Away with you!" He fell, and the next morning was found stretched out before the open window: it was with difficulty they could bring him back to life.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PICTURE OF SAINT ANTHONY.
Magdalene knelt in prayer at the tomb of her brother. She too celebrated the anniversary of this sad day, when the blood of her beloved brother had been shed, and shed on her account. At one blow, she had lost brother and betrothed; for the hand that killed her brother could not lead her to the marriage altar, and yet both brother and betrothed had loved her. For this twofold love she had exchanged her father's hatred, for the father saw in his daughter only the murderer of his son. And what was the maiden's prayer? Both were dead, and prayer could not bring them back. Her happiness for this world was over, and she had no suspicion of the hand that had destroyed it.
Deep stillness reigned throughout the church. Any other maiden would have been afraid to kneel here. The moon shone through the window, and lighted up the carving on the altar, the figure of the martyr, that bound to a tree and pierced through with arrows, writhed in his pain; lighted up, too, the dragon trampled under foot by the victorious archangel, the heavy candelabra, with their wax candles burned down, and finally the altar picture itself, with the figure of the Saint, with the monsters and the seductive woman. The moonlight crept in farther, and lighted up the marble slab under which her brother rested—a prostrate figure, with hands folded on the breast. In the tower hooted the owls, and the death-bird screamed. In the garden outside, the two bears growled to show that they were still on watch. From the castle hall, from time to time, sounded the noise of the drunken revellers. Magdalene would have gladly entered a convent, where her broken heart could have found most peace, but her father would not listen to it. He wanted to marry her, but no suitor came; the young nobility shunned the castle, they pitied the maiden for her sad fate, but they shrunk before the evil nature of her father. The mourning bride and raging father-in-law alike repelled them, and the more mournful the maiden, the more raging became Grazian Likovay. Amid all terrors for the maiden, the most frightful were these wild banquets. It was from these that she sought refuge in the darkness of the church. She knew well that such a revel was nothing but a wild chorus of blasphemy. A hundred throats at once derided Heaven, the future state, and the departed souls,—and this was the way in which the dead brother's memory was celebrated. She tried with her prayers to crowd out the drunken yells on their upward path; while the revellers wandered to the cellars, and their wild cries sounded on the air as if they came from the very bowels of the earth. The maiden trembled as if in fever. The moonlight had left the windows; the church now lay in darkness: only high up on the tower the moon yet shone on the lonely bell. She gazed upwards. Suddenly it seemed to her as if the bell were in motion. Was it an hallucination? Did her dream make visions so real? The bell rang! Then it tolled as for the welfare of a dying soul. And yet the bell had no rope, and there was no one to pull it if it had. In her astonishment new marvels followed. The darkness in the church began to give way to a twilight; 'twas the twilight that comes in dreams. The altar picture shone; around the brow of the saint gleamed an aureole, while the form of the seductive woman grew black. Before this marvel, the maiden sank trembling on her knees. "O God, my Lord!" she murmured. The last notes of the bell were dying away, and at the same moment dropped down with a rolling sound the picture of Saint Anthony of Padua with all its terrifying adjuncts, and in the space thus left vacant stood a living figure. Again it was Anthony of Padua in monk's cowl, barefooted, with tonsured head, a lighted torch in his hand. The maiden in terror clasped both hands to her breast. Did this vision bring death for her? Would that it might be so! The living figure stepped down from the frame of the altar picture, and striding over books and stools came nearer. With a gentle cry of terror the maiden sprang up, stretched out both hands in entreaty, and turned away her face. She heard her name, "Magdalene." Everything swam around her,—she fell in a swoon to the ground. When she recovered consciousness, she saw those eyes beaming upon her, whose glow was more wonderful than that of the sun. Perhaps dreams come in a swoon. Dreams are deceivers; who knows how many worlds her soul had wandered through in this short dream, how many eternities she had lived through; she feared the phantom no more. With his name on her lips she awoke, "Tihamer." To her he was always only "Tihamer." "Have you come down from Heaven to me?" The young monk shook his head sadly. He might with assurance have said that he came down from the realms of the dead, so pallid was his countenance, so cold his hands. The wax candle that he had brought with him now stood in a candlestick on the altar and lighted up their faces. The young man spoke in a subdued and gentle voice. "Be not astounded, I am no marvel, nor ghost, nor spirit from the other world. I am a living, miserable man. The rumor of my death was false. It was not my head that the Turks cut off in prison, but my servant's, who had changed clothes with me."