THE FAMILY GROUP.
At the other of these sits, occupied in some household task, our maid Barbara,—she alone of all the other maids–of–all–work, mending hose, washing windows, or stewing saur–kraut, that day in wide Germany, still extant,—a good servant enough, if "ipsius mores" could be tolerated.[109] For Barbara's immortality, sad to say, rests mainly like that of some other historical personages, on this questionability of her moral character. Yes! there, clearly enough, sits Barbara at the other window, doing what was to be done under the eye of her mistress, who does not approve of her hand–maiden running out into streets filled with Spanish soldiers, and who finds, as she says at the end of the dialogue she sent to Lavinia della Rovere, that all goes wrong in a house as soon as the mistress's back is turned.
In the background of the large room are two heavy wooden closed bedsteads, looking more like huge chests of drawers than any other modern piece of furniture, in which repose Olympia and her husband. For this, the best and only good room in the house, is the lady's bower and bedchamber. The two little damp rooms below serve, the one as a kitchen, and the other as the family refectory. Above, in the huge roof, two little narrow–windowed chambers held the pallet beds of Theodora and Emilio; and above these, squeezed into the narrowing roof, another cell, with its eye–like window, peering out under the projecting eaves of the gable, afforded a dormitory for Barbara of the intolerable morals.
Something like this, I fancy, must have been that quiet home, and the way of life in that pine–wood furnished low–roofed chamber, where the daily lessons occupied the morning; and where, in the evening, when the good doctor had returned from his work, some one or two of those "viri boni," for whose sake a residence at Schweinfurth was agreeable,—learned Dominus Johannes Cremer, or learned Magister Andreas Roser, the schoolmaster,—fortis Gyas, fortisque Cloanthus,—grave men in stiff ruffles, large dark–coloured cloaks, and flat wide hats, which they retained as they sat in the somewhat bleak room,—would come in and hold sober discourse in Latin—(Olympia did not understand German)—on the last new controversial work of some shining light, on the probability of the provisions of the Interim being enforced, on the certainty of the doctrine of election, or the uncertainty of the movements of the Emperor, or other such topics; and finish the evening by singing together one of Olympia's Greek Psalms, set to music by her husband; wherein one may fancy that the pure Italian soprano of Olympia, the childish treble of the two children, and the deep voices of the musical German guests, as they joined in the sonorous Greek syllables, under the guidance of Grünthler's bâton, produced a performance altogether sui generis. And all is well, if only that slippery ancilla, Barbara, had not taken the opportunity of running out into the street, and left perchance the door on the latch.
SCHOOLS A PREACHER.
A pale life, vulgar cares, and monotonous duties for our Court–muse, so long accustomed to the flattering homage of a brilliant courtier circle in the splendid Ferrara saloons, glittering with gilding, and glowing with the colours of Dosso Dossi! The contrast must have presented itself sometimes to Olympia's mind; but the recollection was more calculated to produce a contented smile than a sigh of regret. It is a noticeable development of a richly endowed moral nature,—this change of one, who seemed so wholly and perfectly made and fitted for the element in which she then moved, into a being at least as thoroughly adapted to a life so violently contrasted to it in all ways.
Sometimes the perfect adaptation to her new position, as the learned wife of a distinguished professor, not without authority in her circle, shows itself amusingly in a little assumption of the birched Minerva attitude, to which, it has been hinted, she had a slight leaning. As when we find her writing to a divine,[110] whose name is discreetly left in blank, in this strain:
"As I have good information that your backslidings are frequent, I have thought it right to admonish you that you are acting in a manner at variance with the high dignity of your office, and disgraceful to your gray hairs, in giving way to your appetite as grossly as any Epicurus could do!" The gray–haired preacher, it would seem, was addicted to excessive potations; and Olympia's letter is long and eloquent enough on the subject to have mended his habits, if it was in the power of lecturing to do so.
Grünthler and his wife had hardly got settled at Schweinfurth before a very eligible appointment to a Professor's chair at Lintz was offered to him, through George Hermann. The position seemed to be all that could be desired, if only a favourably reply were returned to one question, which Olympia immediately writes[111] back to their kind friend and patron to ask. "Is anti–Christ raging at Lintz? Shall we be permitted, that is to say, to hold and to profess openly our own faith? Because, having been enlightened sufficiently to see and give testimony to the truth, our eternal happiness would be the price of any turning back from the plough."
The answer on this point was unfavourable. All thoughts, therefore, of the Lintz professorship were abandoned: and Grünthler and his wife were contented to remain in their humble home in the free city of Schweinfurth.