But the rose of his love, as he is wont to term it, had fearful thorns. I heard with a shudder of what he underwent that he might crush to death his naturally active, buoyant, impulsive temperament. Day and night he wore a close-fitting shirt in which were a hundred and fifty sharp nails, the points turned inward on the flesh. In this he lay writhing, like a mangled worm; and lest in his sleep he should find some easier posture, or relieve with his hands in any way the smart and sting that, like a nest of vipers, gnawed him everywhere, he had leather gloves made, covered with sharp blades, so that every touch might make a wound. Time after time were the old scars opened into new gashes. His body appeared like that of one who has escaped, half dead, from the furious clutches of a bear. This lasted sixteen years, till a vision bade him cease.
Never satisfied with suffering, he devised a new kind of discipline. He fashioned a wooden cross, with thirty nails whose points stood out beyond the wood, and this he wore between his shoulders underneath his garments, till his back was one loathly sore. To the thirty nails he added afterwards seven more, in honour of the sorrows of the Mother of God. When he would administer the discipline, he struck a blow on this cross with his fist, driving the points into his wounded flesh. He made himself, moreover, a scourge, one of the iron tags of which was bent like a fisher’s hook, and with this he lashed himself till it broke in his hand. For many years he lay at nights in a miserable hole he called his cell, with an old door for his bed, and in the depth of winter thought it sin to approach the stove for warmth. His convent lay on a little island where the Rhine flows out of the Lake of Constance. He could see the sparkling water on every side. His wounds filled him with feverish thirst; yet he would often pass the whole day without suffering a drop to moisten his lips. His recompence was the vision in which, at one time, the Holy Child brought him a vessel of spring-water; and, at another, Our Blessed Lady gave him to drink from her own heart. Such, they tell me, was his life till his fortieth year, when it was signified to him that he should remit these terrible exercises. He is now, I believe, little more than fifty years old—the mere wreck of a man to look at; but with such life and energy of spirit that, now he hath begun to live more like other people, he may have a good thirty years before him still.[[163]]
I questioned him about his book called the Horologe of Wisdom, or Book of the Eternal Wisdom, for it hath gone abroad under both names. He said it was finished in the year 1340, since which time he hath written sundry other pieces. He declared to me that he wrote that treatise only in his most favoured moments, himself ignorant and passive, but under the immediate impulse and illumination of the Divine Wisdom. He afterwards carefully examined all he had written, to be sure that there was nothing in his pages other than the holy Fathers had taught, and the Church received.[[164]] Methought, if he was sure of his inspiration, he might have spared himself this pain, unless the Holy Spirit could in some sort gainsay his own words.
He is strongly moved by music,—but what must have been his rapture to hear the hymns of the heavenly host! He has seen himself surrounded by the choir of seraphim and cherubim. He has heard a voice of thrilling sweetness lead the response, ‘Arise and shine, Jerusalem,’ and has wept in his cell with joy to hear from angels’ lips, at early dawn, the soaring words, ‘Mary, the morning star, is risen to-day.’ Many a time has he seen a heavenly company sent down to comfort him. They have taken him by the hand, and he has joined in spirit in their dance,—that celestial dance, which is a blissful undulation to and fro in the depths of the divine glory. One day, when thus surrounded in vision, he asked a shining prince of heaven to show him the mode in which God had His secret dwelling in his soul. Then answered the angel, ‘Take a gladsome look into thine inmost, and see how God in thy loving soul playeth His play of love.’ Straightway (said Suso to me) I looked, and behold the body about my heart was clear as crystal, and I saw the Eternal Wisdom calmly sitting in my heart in lovely wise: and, close by that form of beauty, my soul, leaning on God, embraced by His arm, pressed to His heart, full of heavenly longing, transported, intoxicated with love![[165]]
We were talking one evening of May-day eve, and asking Suso wherein their custom of celebrating that festival differed from our own. He said that in Suabia the youths went out, much in our fashion, singing songs before the houses of the maidens they loved, and craving from them garlands in honour of the May. He told us how he, in like manner, besought Our Lady with prayers and tears that he might have a garland from her Son, the Eternal Wisdom. It was his wont, he said, to set up a spiritual May-pole—the holy cross, that May-bough of the soul, blossoming with grace and beauty. ‘Before this,’ he continued, ‘I performed six venias,[[166]] and sung the hymn, ‘Hail, holy cross!’ thereafter praising God somewhat thus:—
‘Hail! heavenly May of the Eternal Wisdom, whose fruit is everlasting joy. First, to honour thee, I bring thee, to-day, for every red rose a heart’s love; then, for every little violet a lowly inclination; next, for every tender lily, a pure embrace; for every bright flower ever born or to be born of May, on heath or grassplot, wood or field, tree or meadow, my heart doth bring thee a spiritual kiss; for every happy song of birds that ever sang in the kindly May, my soul would give thee praises inexhaustible; for every grace that ever graced the May, my heart would raise thee a spiritual song, and pray thee, O thou blest soul’s May! to help me so to glorify thee in my little time below, that I may taste thy living fruit for evermore above!‘[[167]]
The beginning of a new stage of trial was made known to him by the appearance, in a vision, of an angel, bringing him the attire and the shoes of a knight. With these he was to gird himself for new and yet more terrible conflicts. Concerning his own austerities he never speaks, nor does he show to any one the letters of the name of Jesus, which he is said to have cut with a style upon his bosom. But of the sufferings which came upon him from without, he talks freely. At one time, when in Flanders, he was brought before the chapter on a charge of heresy; but his enemies gained not their wicked end.[[168]] He was in greatest danger of his life shortly before the coming of the plague, when the fearful rumour was abroad about the poisoning of the wells. He himself told me the story, as follows:—
‘I was once despatched on a journey in the service of the convent, and they gave me as my companion a half-witted lay-brother. We had not been many days on the road, when, one morning, having early left our quarters for the night, we arrived, after a long, hungry walk through the rain, at a village on the banks of the Rhine. It happened to be the fair-time. The street was full of booths and stalls, horses and cattle, country-folk, players, pedlers, and idle roystering soldiers. My fellow-traveller, Peter, catches sight of a sign, and turns in straightway to warm himself at the fire, telling me I can go on, do what I have to do, and I shall find him there. As I learnt after, he sits himself down to table with a ruffianly set of drovers and traders that had come to the fair, who first of all make him half-drunk, and then seize him, and swear he has stolen a cheese. At this moment there come in four or five troopers, hardened fellows, ripe for any outrage, who fall on him also, crying, ‘The scoundrel monk is a poisoner.’ The clamour soon gathers a crowd.
‘When Peter sees matters at this pass, he piteously cries out to them to loose him, and stand still and listen: he will confess everything. With that they let go their hold, and he, standing trembling in the midst of them, begins: ‘Look at me, sirs,—you see I am a fool; they call me silly, and nobody cares for what I say: but my companion, he is a wise man, so our Order has given him the poison-bag, and he is to poison all the springs between here and Alsace. He is gone now to throw some into the spring here, to kill every one that is come to the fair. That is why I stayed here, and would not go with him. You may be sure that what I say is true, for you will see him when he comes with a great wallet full of bags of poison and gold pieces, which he and the Order have received from the Jews for this murderous business.’
‘At these words they all shouted, ‘After the murderer! Stop him! Stop him!’ One seized a spear, another an axe, others the first tool or weapon they could lay hands on, and all hurried furiously from house to house, and street to street, breaking open doors, ransacking closets, stabbing the beds, and thrusting in the straw with their swords, till the whole fair was in an uproar. Some friends of mine, who heard my name mentioned, assured them of my innocence of such an abominable crime, but to no purpose. At last, when they could nowhere find me, they carried Peter off to the bailiff, who shut him up in the prison.