"Afraid of what, dearest lady?"
"Of that sour old priest. He is to examine me to-morrow in the Catechism of Gerschovius, and I cannot learn a word of it, do what I will. I know Luther's Catechism quite well" (this was a falsehood, we know), "but that does not satisfy him, and if I cannot repeat it he will slap my hands or box my ears, and my lady the Duchess will be more angry than ever; but I am too old now to learn catechisms."
Then she trembled like an aspen-leaf, and fixed her eyes on him with such tenderness that he trembled likewise, and drawing her arm within his, supported her to her chamber. On the way she pressed his hand repeatedly; but with each pressure, as he afterwards confessed, a pang shot through his heart, which might have excited compassion from his worst enemy.
When they reached her chamber, she would not let him enter, but modestly put him back, saying, "Leave me—ah! leave me, gracious Prince. I must creep to my bed; and in the meantime let me entreat you to persuade the priest not to torment me to-morrow morning."
The Prince now left her, and forgetting all about the Lapland wizard whom he had left waiting in the courtyard, he rushed over the drawbridge, up the main street behind St. Peter's, and into the house of Dr. Gerschovius.
The doctor was indignant at his petition.
"My young Prince," he said, "if ever a human being stood in need of God's Word, it is that young maiden." At last, however, upon the entreaties of Prince Ernest, he consented to defer her examination for four weeks, during which time she could fully perfect herself in the catechism of his learned brother.
He then prayed the Prince not to allow his eyes to be dazzled by this fair, sinful beauty, who would delude him as she had done all the other men in the castle, not excepting even that old sinner Zitsewitz.
When the Prince returned to the castle, he found a great crowd assembled round the Lapland wizard, all eagerly asking to have their fortunes told, and Sidonia was amongst them, as merry and lively as if nothing had ailed her. When the Prince expressed his surprise, she said, that finding herself much relieved by lying down, she had ventured into the fresh air, to recreate herself, and have her fortune told. Would not the Prince likewise wish to hear his?
So, forgetting all his mother's wise injunctions, he advanced with Sidonia to the wizard. The Lapland drum, which lay upon his knees, was a strange instrument; and by it we can see what arts Satan employs to strengthen his kingdom in all places and by all means. For the Laplanders are Christians, though they in some sort worship the devil, and therefore he imparts to them much of his own power. This drum which they use is made out of a piece of hollow wood, which must be either fir, pine, or birch, and which grows in such a particular place that it follows the course of the sun; that is, the pectines, fibræ, and lineæ in the annual rings of the wood must wind from right to left. Having hollowed out such a tree, they spread a skin over it, fastened down with little pegs; and on the centre of the skin is painted the sun, surrounded by figures of men, beasts, birds, and fishes, along with Christ and the holy Apostles. All this is done with the rind of the elder-tree, chewed first beneath their teeth. Upon the top of the drum there is an index in the shape of a triangle, from which hang a number of little rings and chains. When the wizard wishes to propitiate Satan and receive his power, he strikes the drum with a hammer made of the reindeer's horn, not so much to procure a sound as to set the index in motion with all its little chains, that it may move over the figures, and point to whatever gives the required answer. At the same time the magician murmurs conjurations, springs sometimes up from the ground, screams, laughs, dances, reels, becomes black in the face, foams, twists his eyes, and falls to the ground at last in an ecstasy, dragging the drum down upon his face.