The Romance of the Canoness Part 8

Somewhat embarra.s.sed to defend my position, I tried to help myself with a jest.

"I would give much if I could see you stand in the pulpit in a black robe and bands, and hear you preach. But tell me, if you had been a man, what profession would you have chosen?"

The Canoness stood still a moment, apparently gazing at a wide, radiant prospect with a rapt expression I had never seen on her face before.

"I would have been an artist, an actor, or a singer," she said, softly.

"An actor?" I replied, scarcely concealing my horror.

"What do you discover so terrible in that?" she asked, with a slight, sarcastic smile. "Is it not a magnificent thing to embody the characters of a great author, to cast n.o.ble, beautiful thoughts among the throng of breathless listeners? But perhaps you know nothing about it. You believe the theatre to be a sink of iniquity, like so many of your cla.s.s. I can only pity you. I have neither the desire nor the power to convert you to a better view."

"And where were you yourself converted?"

"Oh, I--I, like you, was reared to loathe this so-called jugglery. But, three years ago, I spent several months in Berlin. An old aunt, who was very fond of me, sent for me because she was entirely alone. Uncle Joachim took me to her. There I spent the happiest period of my life, and there the scales fell from my eyes."

"If those are your views, have you never felt tempted to become a singer?" I inquired. "With your beautiful voice and love for music--"

"No," she answered, firmly, "as a girl I should never have ventured into that career. For the very reason that music lies so near my heart, I should feel it a desecration to be compelled to come forward and reveal my inmost soul to strangers, who had paid for tickets. Perhaps, if I had true genius, it would bear me above all such scruples. And yet the greatest singer I ever heard, Milder--have you heard Milder?"

I was forced to confess I had never entered an opera-house.

"Well, then, we will say no more about the matter," she replied. "You could not understand me. But I pity you."

Yet she did tell me more of her experiences in Berlin. She had heard Milder in some of Gluck's operas and in "The Vestal," and described her appearance, her figure, her execution; then, a.s.suming a majestic att.i.tude, she herself sang several pa.s.sages which had specially touched her. Her fair face flushed crimson, and her eyes sparkled.

I believe it was on that evening that she enthralled my heart forever.

Not a word was exchanged between us concerning the events of the afternoon or of my sermon. But I was too happy to find that she gave me her confidence so far, not to forget myself and my petty vanity.

We rambled over the fields for an hour, until it grew perfectly dark, and returned to the castle just at tea-time. The Canoness had arranged her bouquet very gracefully and laid it beside her aunt's cup, who patted her arm with a grateful glance. She looked past her uncle into vacancy, without moving a muscle. The latter was in the worst possible humor, which he even vented on Mademoiselle Suzon during the game of chess.

Soon after I went to my tower-room, Fraulein Luise began to sing below.

I listened at my open window in a perfect rapture of every sense.

Outside, the nightingales were trilling, beneath me this magnificent voice, in which so strong, so pure, so n.o.ble a woman's soul appealed to me--I felt as if my whole being had been encompa.s.sed with iron bands, and in this "moonlit, magic night" one after another burst asunder, and I could breathe freely for the first time.

Much might be said of the days that followed. They were the happiest of my young life. But memorable as they are still, distinctly as I can recall all the trivial events and rapturous joys of many, I shall avoid relating them in detail.

Though a man should speak of his first and only love with the tongue of an angel, he would find no patient listeners.

Yet, for truth's sake, I must here remark that I did not deceive myself for an instant in regard to the hopelessness of my pa.s.sion. But, strangely enough, this clear perception of the heights and depths which separated me from the woman I worshiped did not make me unhappy. Nay, it would only have crippled the lofty flight of my feelings had I flattered myself that this peerless, unattainable being might some day prosaically descend from her height and become the wife of a commonplace village pastor. True, I can not a.s.sert that this state of mere spiritual aspiration would always have continued. If she gave me her hand, if her dress brushed me, or my foot even touched the shoes she had put outside her chamber-door in the evening to be cleaned, an electric shock thrilled me, which doubtless had some other origin than mere devotion and the worship we pay to saints.

Still, it never entered my mind to imagine that I could put my arm around her and press her lips. I believe I should have actually fallen lifeless from ecstasy if such a thing had occurred.

Externally everything remained precisely as before--our lesson-hours, which she always attended as a duenna, our Sunday conversations in the kitchen-garden, now and then a meeting at Mother Lieschen's. Yet I felt more and more plainly that she trusted me and had forgiven my former follies. My hair was now parted wholly on the left side, and no longer combed behind my ears.

Whitsuntide came in the middle of June, and Whitsuntide Tuesday was her birthday, on which she attained her majority. The evening before, I had composed a long poem addressed to her, no declaration of love, merely a simple expression of grat.i.tude for all she had done to aid my secret regeneration. I had carefully erased every exaggerated word that had flowed from my pen in the first fervor of writing, and subst.i.tuted a simpler and more genuine one. I was no great poet, though I had been considered one at the college. While following the style in which church hymns are composed, I had been able to deceive myself on this point. Now that I desired to express my deepest personal feelings, I perceived that G.o.d had not granted me the power "to tell what I suffered." Yet on the whole I did not succeed badly, and it afforded me special pleasure to accost her in my lyric flight with the "Du" (thou).

Then I made a fair copy of my poem, and at midnight stole softly down-stairs and pushed it under her door, that she might find it the next morning.

I waited with many an inward tremor and quickened throbbing of the heart to learn how she would receive it, and was much relieved when, at dinner, she showed me by an unusually cordial pressure of the hand that she had not been displeased. No notice was taken in the household, save surrept.i.tiously, of the high holiday, for which no celebration, either of music, illuminations, or fireworks, would have seemed to me brilliant enough. The old baroness had crocheted a large silver-gray shawl, which, spite of the heat, the Canoness did not lay aside all day; Uncle Joachim wore a little bouquet in the b.u.t.ton-hole of his gray coat; my pupil Achatz, who had grown very well behaved, gave her a horse which he had sketched very carefully from nature; and Fraulein Leopoldine had placed in her room a rose-bush in full bloom. The master of the house appeared to see no reason for making any special ado over the day, though it must have been a marked one to him, since it relieved him from the duties of his guardianship.

"Come and drink coffee with me this afternoon," Uncle Joachim had whispered to me as he rose from the table. I bowed silently, feeling as if I had received a patent of n.o.bility.

When, an hour later, I went to the little summerhouse, I found the Canoness already there. Diana, Uncle Joachim's pointer, sprang toward me growling, as soon as I crossed the threshold of the sanctuary; but, seeing that her master welcomed me kindly, lay down again, whining and wagging her tail, at the feet of the young lady who, from time to time, rubbed her smooth back with the tip of her foot.

Uncle Joachim wore a short summer coat made of unbleached linen, with yellow bone b.u.t.tons, and a white cravat, and had brushed the hair over his high forehead in a curve that gave him a holiday air. On the neatly covered table, which had been cleared and pushed into the middle of the room, stood a large pound-cake adorned with a wreath of roses.

"You ought to brighten up Herr Weissbrod's black coat a little, Luise,"

he said, with his dry, good-natured smile. "A poet likes flowers."

I blushed at finding the secret of my rhymed congratulations betrayed, and the flush grew deeper when the young lady took several beautiful buds from the garland and fastened them in my b.u.t.ton-hole with her own hands. Then we three sat in the most delightful friendliness around the table; Fraulein Luise poured the coffee from the big Bunzlau[1] pot, and cut the cake. I was amazed to see with what persistent dexterity Uncle Joachim made the largest pieces vanish behind his sound teeth, while I myself had lost all appet.i.te in the delight of being near her.

Meantime a merry little conversation went on, spiced by my host's droll remarks and Luise's musical laughter. I myself served as a target for the old gentleman, who indulged in jests about my inward and outward transformation, but so kindly that I could not help joining in the laugh, without the least feeling of offense.

I was ashamed of having at first set so low a value upon this man. No one could desire a more genial companion; without the least effort he gave an interesting turn to everything he said.

When only a small portion of the cake was left, our host filled a short, smoke-blackened pipe with French tobacco, stretched his long limbs comfortably under the table, and began for the first time to really thaw out. He amused himself by recalling how and where, during the past years, he had spent his niece's birthdays. The year she was born, he had been in France, and related all sorts of adventures he had had there, often breaking off, however, as he approached the point, because they were not exactly fit for a woman's ears. Then he spoke of his other journeys, his travels in Spain, often with a heavy sigh, because such delightful days were over. He also questioned me about my so-called past, and, shaking his head, said, "You have missed a great deal, Herr Weissbrod. Whoever doesn't sow his wild oats in youth, must commit his follies later, when they are less easily forgiven. Nature will not be mocked."

Luise rose, saying that she was going to take a walk. Then she asked for a piece of paper, in which she carefully wrapped the remains of the cake, pressed Uncle Joachim's hand, and nodded pleasantly to me. "Wait a bit," cried the old gentleman, in Platt Deutsch--he was very fond of speaking it when in a good humor--"the old witch shall have a birthday present from me too." While speaking, he took from the chest of drawers a small snuffbox, which he had made himself out of birch-bark, and filled it with tobacco. "Here's something for her eyes. She need only try it. When she has used it all up, I'll give her more."

I understood that these holiday presents were intended for Mother Lieschen, and would have been only too glad to accompany the young lady. But I did not venture to make the offer, and, after she had gone, remained a few minutes with the old gentleman.

I call him so because, at that time, when I was only twenty-three, he really seemed to me very elderly and venerable, but he would have been not a little offended, or else laughed heartily, had he suspected that, while only forty-eight, I had already placed him on the catalogue of ancients.

When we were alone, he laid his large hairy hand on my shoulder.

"You are still a young man, Herr Weissbrod," he said. "But when you have half a century more on your back, even though you have used your eyes industriously meanwhile, I doubt whether you will have met any human being more pleasing to G.o.d than the girl whose birth we celebrate to-day. I am glad that, judging from your poem, some idea of this is beginning to dawn upon you. Only heed this well-meant advice--don't scorch your wings. That's nonsense."

I stammered something that sounded like an a.s.surance that I was far from intending such presumption.

"That's right, my son," he said, kindly. "Follies, as I declared, are good things in their way. But we mustn't lose hide and hair in committing them, like the bear who put his head into the honey-tree and couldn't pull it out again. Good-evening, Herr Weissbrod. Don't take offense because I don't go to hear your sermons. My old heathen, the rheumatism, can't bear the air of the church."

How often I afterward recalled the worthy man's words, and could not help sighing mournfully and saying, with a shake of the head, "Good advice is cheap. You were her uncle, dear friend, and, besides, had had your due share of 'follies' in the past, while I, poor student of theology, had yet to learn the first rudiments of pa.s.sion.

"Then you did not consider the unreasonable number of nightingales in the park, which were fairly in league against me; and, what was still more, the voice below, Gluck's 'Armida,' Spontini's 'Vestal,' and all the divine spells of golden hair and brown eyes."

But I am lapsing into Wertherism again. At least, I will commit no more follies now, but continue my narrative like an honest chronicler.

We are writing of August 26th. It was a fruitful year, and the harvest had almost all been garnered. But the heat daily increased, and we obtained no relief until after sunset. I had gone in the sweat of my brow to the next village, which belonged to our parish, on an errand of duty: to aid a sick tailor who desired spiritual consolation--no easy task. The old sinner, in his terror and despair, had been reading certain tracts and taken specially to heart the doctrine of the endless punishments of h.e.l.l, probably because he was aware that he had made a sinful use of his tailor's h.e.l.l[2] here below.