The Romance of the Canoness: A Life-History

by Paul Heyse

But I had fretted in vain.

I set out at a rapid pace, and, having discovered a meadow-path, which, intersecting the avenue, led straight to the village and church, I arrived even before the party from the castle.

The sexton received me, ushered me into the vestry, and helped me don the black robe in which I always seemed to myself especially trim and ecclesiastical. While the last verse of the hymn was being sung, I saw by my pocket-mirror that my locks were parted down the middle of my head in perfect order, and my hands faultlessly clean, and then entered the crowded church.

I had carefully examined and tried my voice in it the day before. It was as plain and bare as most of our village churches in the Mark, having been hastily rebuilt with scanty means after a conflagration, and even robbed of the monuments which, as the sexton said, had come down from Catholic times. On the whitewashed pillars hung nothing but dusty and faded bridal and funeral wreaths, with long black or white streamers and tarnished silver spangles. There was also a black tablet with a few hooks, from which were suspended the war medals of anno '13, '14, and '15, with the names of their wearers in clumsy white letters beneath. The organ alone was handsome, its pipes brightly polished, and its notes--for the schoolmaster understood his business--greeted me with a harmonious melody as I climbed the steep stairs to the pulpit.

While the last verse died away I had just time to scan my devout congregation. Opposite to me, in the baronial pew lined with red cloth, sat the party that had come in the carriage. In the front seat, at its left, was the pastor's plump old wife; the lines on her cheerful face were to-day drawn into a peculiarly intent expression. I told myself that I should have in her a particularly critical auditor. Behind these pews, in a dense throng, were the peasants and cottagers of the village, with their wives and children, whose singing, thanks to the musical teacher, was far more endurable to hear than is usually the case in our unmelodious region. Spite of my self-confidence, I was forced to subdue the quickened throbbing of my heart as I saw the eyes of all these strangers fixed steadily and not exactly benevolently upon me. I was really glad not to discover among them one pair that, within the last few days, had already more than once disturbed my peace of mind.

But just as I was opening the Bible on the pulpit desk to read the text, the door at the end of the narrow aisle, between the rows of pews, noiselessly opened, and, amid a stream of sunlight and spring air, that was instantly shut out again, the Canoness entered. Instead of passing through the rows to take her seat in the baron's pew, she unceremoniously sat down on the farthest bench, where an old woman, in whom I now recognized Mother Lieschen, made room for her with a friendly nod. No one else in the church noticed her; this late arrival appeared to be considered perfectly proper.

So I began my sermon in a somewhat unsteady voice, but it soon grew firmer. The text was: "Many are called, but few are chosen."

The doctrine of predestination had frequently been the theme of our debates at the university, and the sermon as I had brought it in my trunk bore evident traces of the learned apparatus with which I was accustomed to defend my views. For my present congregation, however, I had wisely omitted this, and restricted myself to bringing the kingdom of God as I had dreamed of it, in vast outlines, but colored with brilliant hues, before the imagination of my listeners. It resembled, as it were, a beautiful fairy palace, to which led an immense, broad staircase. This symbolized the temporal world in which, separated by steps, the many called and the few chosen hurried on together. For, I said, as all nature shows a gradual development from a lower to a higher stage, in which no creature has reason to complain, since thus alone can the omnipotence of God, which renders everything that might be possible actual, reveal itself; so it is compatible with the Creator's infinite righteousness that he does not endow all his creatures equally, but makes distinctions, and, with apparent severity, favors one and neglects another. Thus only could he have completed the wondrous picture of the world, without leaving any step vacant or overleaping transitions. If dissatisfaction should thereby arise, the peace that is not of this world will at some future time silence all complaints and reconcile all contradictions. On the day the portals of that palace would open at the sound of the last trump, all who were waiting on the stairs would be invited to celebrate the entrance into the heavenly mansions. Ay, even those on the lowest step. For it is explicitly written: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

I now adorned this idea of a staircase, which, as the final tableau of a fairy opera, would have done credit to a scene-painter, with the necessary lay figures and heroic characters, which I will briefly pass over here. It is only necessary to say that in the elect on the upper step I described with tolerable clearness people of the stamp of my employer and his family--high-born, wealthy mortals, endowed with every advantage of nature and education, and also with the grace of true religion; while on the lowest step crawled poverty-stricken creatures, bereft of happiness, like Mother Lieschen, who, however, would also be saved if they gathered the treasures which moth and rust do not destroy.

After I had pronounced the benediction over the congregation and descended the steep stairs of the pulpit, I felt fairly intoxicated by my own fiery eloquence, and considered it only natural that the baron should signify his most gracious approval by a nod of his handsome head. The pastor's wife, on the contrary, had not changed her expression in the least, and did not stir even when I passed close by her. I forgave her from my heart for being unable to feel friendly to the new star that outshone her husband.