Читать книгу The Holy Sinner - Thomas Mann - Страница 6

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For seventeen years Duke Grimald outlived his wife Baduhenna, for that term and not less; then he came to her under the stone in the cathedral at Ypres, and on the stone they both lay, stiffly chiselled, as Christian spouses, their hands crossed before God on their breasts. For this prince since the decease of his wife had been increasingly given to excess of claret and one day he got as dark copper-red in the face as Wiligis had seen him in the dream, and after that yellow: the Foule Fiend had tapped him on the temple and he was dead of a stroke—for the moment only on his right side, so that he could not move the limbs and also he partly lost his speech and could only blow words like bubbles out of the left-hand corner of his mouth. But his doctor from Löwen and the Greek Elias whom he had sent for, neither of them concealed from him that the Foule Fiend might easily strike him again before long and then he would inevitably be dead on his left side too.

They said this in order that he might still be in time to bestow his kingdom; by their warning they put him in mind and he sent for the best in the land, kinsfolk, man, and servant, to commend to them his soul and his children and admonish them upon their leal oath if now death was to be his company. When now they all, cousins and liegemen, together with his children had gathered round the bed where he lay, very much disfigured, one eye shut and his cheek hanging paralysed, then he spoke to them as well as he could:

‘Seigneurs barons, hear my words as though I spoke them with both lips, whereas I can only shake them out of one corner of my mouth, that may ye pardon. Me hath death seized, he already blows over me the cornure de prise, to flay the noble stag in the grave. With the tap of the Foule Fiend has he paralysed one side of me and can any minute fall me entirely, that my physicians beyeah in so many words and thus display their healing art. So now I am to take leave of this abode for worms, and this evil wolf’s gorge, into which we were cast by Adam’s misdoing and which I will still rail at since I must leave it and hope through the will of God’s martyr wounds to enter through the porta paradyses, where me the angels will tend, both day and night, whiles ye still a lytel must abide in this garden of worms. Therefore about me no unseemly haviour! But be mindful, seigneurs barons, of the hour when you did put your two hands together between mine in the oath of fealty. Do the same now to my son when I am quite dead, and put your hands between his even though it seem to you matter for laughing that he should protect you, since the stripling needs your protection instead. Grant him that, cousins and sieurs, as true men, and keep faith to my house, both in urlag and in peace.’

When he had thus taken leave of the gentlemen of his lands he turned to Wiligis and said:

‘You, son, have the least of all reason for lamenting; crown, sceptre, and land, which fell to me as heir, these I hand on to you by my death, if also most unwillingly; and you will enjoy mickle honour in this wolf’s gorge out of which I now depart. Small concern do I give myself on your account, but so much the more for this lovely child and sister thine. Too late do I see that I have ill managed her future and I overwhelm myself with reproaches on her account. Vere, vere, thus should a father not bear himself! Also as concerns you, I know I have made myself to some extent guilty in that through over-great nicety in choice of a spouse for this sweet child I have created much ill will in the courts round about our house. Not otherwise can I atone than by giving the best fatherly counsel now at my end in presence of my land barons so long as I can still speak out of my left side.’

And he said to his son all that his own father had said to him, as is the usual thing and all that he thought fitting to say in such an hour.

‘Be leal and true,’ so he said, ‘not greedy for treasure, yet not of all too free a hand, humble in pride, affable, yet exclusive and strict, mindful of the knightly code, strong against the high, and mild towards them who beg at the windows for bread. Honour thine own, but also shalt thou make strangers dependent and obliging to you. Choose the society of wisdom and length of days over that of young fools! Above all, love God and deal according to His Justice. So much in general. But as my own soul commend I to you this your lovely sister, that you behave towards her as knightly brother and go not from her side until you have found and indeed as soon as possible a husband of equal birth, which I by my sinful niceness have made hard. The princes who have already asked for her, neither the Count Schiolarss nor the Prince Plihopliheri nor any of the others, they will not return, for I was far too inhospital to them for that. But there are yet many Christian realms whose heads till now have not sued for her, and her beautiful eyes, black with a blue gleam from beneath, her charming nostrils, the blosme on her body, not forgetting the rich dowry I have left for her, will soon make many a noble wooer draw nigh, with that I trost myself. But you too must take care to wed without delay and beget a son on whom you one day in dying can bestow the domains of Artoys and Flaundres. Here stands many a cousin in whose eye I read that all his hopes dwell upon the failure of the direct line. So I speak, because to the dying one must grant a true word. At the courts which I have sinfully affronted you cannot ask. But there are truly so many more, in Brittanye, Parmenia, Equitania, Brabant, and the German lands. But now the left corner of my mouth is sore from speaking and I must rest. God keep you from sorrow. Ade.’

After the Lord Grimald had spoken thus, he lived only a few days more; then the Foule Fiend tapped him for the second time on the temple and he was quite dead. Stiff and yellow, like the waxen candles which burned at the sides of his lofty bier, he lay in the castle chapel in ducal state though also quite indifferent towards it, as towards earthly life altogether, belonging to the eternal; until they brought him to Ypren in the cathedral to join his wife, and monks spoke litanies for his soul beside him through the night. But now I cry Woe alas! over this night, when the Lord Grimald was scarce dead; as a corpse still present, though put to rest, gone hence and as father no longer between the brother and sister. For according to Valande’s wicked counsel and to his abominable pleasure which they mistakenly held to be their own, in that same night the brother slept with the sister as man with wife, and their chamber above in the donjon keep, round which the owls circled, was so full of tenderness, defilement, rage, and blood and sin that my heart turns over for pity, shame, and anguish and I may scarcely tell it all.

They both lay naked under their covers of soft sable in the pale gleam of the swinging lamp and the scent of the amber with which their beds were dusted—they stood, as fittingly, far apart, and between them, coiled round like a snake, slumbered Hanegiff, their good hound. But they could not sleep, they lay with open eyes or only sometimes shut them perforce. How it was with the damsel I do not know, but Wiligis, o’erwrought by his father’s death and his own life, groaned under the scourge of the flesh and under Valande’s spur until at last he held out no longer and slipped out of his bed, went round Hanegiff on his bare foot soles, gently lifted Sibylla’s cover, and came, the godforsaken one, with a thousand forbidden kisses, to his sister.

She spoke jestingly, albeit with voice unjestingly choked:

‘Lo, my Lord Duke, mickle honour you show me with your unexpected visit! What gives me the privilege of feeling your dear skin near mine? A joy would that be to me, if only round the tower the little owlets would not so awefully screech.’

‘They always screech.’

‘But not so awefully. That may be why your hands cannot rest but must so strangely wrestle with me. What means, my brother, this wrestling? How have I thy sweet shoulder at my lips? Why not? It is dear to me. Only you must not aim to part my knees one from the other; for they shall altogether and unconditionally remain together.’

All at once hound Hanegiff set himself on his haunches and gave lamentable tongue, he began to howl up to the roof-tree, just as when a dog bays at the moon, long drawn out, heart-breaking, and from the bottom of his heart.

‘Hanegiff, still!’ cried Wiligis. ‘He will wake the household. Beast, be quiet, lie down! O devil-beastie, if you do not stop I will make you dumb!’

But Hanegiff, afore always so biddable, howled on.

And the younker just as he was, half crazed, sprang out of bed for his hunting-knife, seized the dog, and cut his throat, so that with a throat-rattle he stretched his limbs in death; threw the knife on the body, whose blood the sand of the floor drank up; then he turned drunkenly back to the place of another shame.

Oh woe for the good and lovely dog! To my mind it was the worst that happened this night, I rather pardon the rest, unlawful as it was. But I suppose it was all of one piece and was not more blameworthy here than there: a spewing of love, murder, and passion of the flesh, that may God pity. At least it makes me pitiful.

Sibylla whispered:

‘What have you done? I have not looked, but pulled the cover over my head. It is so still all at once and you are rather wet.’

He said breathlessly:

‘So far so good. Anaclet, my body-servant, is leal and true. He will make order early, scratch a hole, and hide him, and destroy all signs. Us may no one ask. Since Grimald is dead, no one, sister-Duchess, my sweet other-I, beloved.’

‘Consider,’ she breathed, ‘that he died but today and lies stiff below in state. Wait, the night belongs to the dead!’

‘Out of death,’ he babbled, ‘were we born and are his children. In its name, sweet bride, give thyself to thy death-brother and grant what minne covets as minne-boon.’

And they murmured what one would no longer understand and is not even meant to be understood:

‘N’en frais pas. J’en duit.’

‘Fai le. Manjue, ne sez que est. Pernum ço bien que nus est prest.’

‘Est-il tant bon?’

‘Tu le saveras. Nel poez saver sin gusteras.’

‘O Willo, quelle arme! Ouwe, mais tu me tues. Oh shame! a stallion, a buck, a cock! Oh, away and away! O angel boy! O heavenly friend!—’

Poor children! Glad am I that I have naught to do with love, the dancing will-o’-wisp above the marsh, the sweet devil’s torture. So they went on to the end and wreaked Satan’s lust, who wiped his mouth and said: ‘Now it has happened. Could just as well be again and often.’ For thus it was he was used to speak.

In the morning young Anaclet, blindly devoted to his lord, set the bedchamber in order and fetched away unseen the body of leal Hanegiff. But how outward alone was this order and how disorderly things were with the erring pair, the charming young folk, to whom I will so well, without being able to excuse them, and who truly through lust were fettered far closer still to each other than ever—out of all bounds they loved and that is why I cannot quite rid me of well-wishing for them, God help me!

Of course it is said: ‘When the bed has been gained the right is obtained,’ but what was here obtained but unright and topsy-turviness to make one giddy? According to rule, the bed-lying goes before betrothal and wedding; but here it would have been madness and delusion to think, after the bed-gaining, of betrothal and marriage, and Sibylla, no longer maid, might not next morn bind up her hair and put on wifely snood; but must still wear the lying crants which yet by her own brother had been torn, when she paced at his hand before the subjects of the land at the Lord Grimald’s burial and the ceremonies of the oath-taking. Before Arras on the mead were many splendid tents set up, with particoloured velvet roofs (when one drew off the leather cover that protected them in rainy weather), and poles, more than the forest has trees, were planted round in the plain, hung with shields and rich banners. Many an old knight there put his hands between the hands of the sinful young Wiligis and bent low before the maiden Duchess, who by rights must have buried herself in dust and ashes. But she held the strange view, and spoke also in this sense to her left-hand spouse, that one who had belonged only to her own brother had not become a wife in the common meaning but rather was still a maid and wore with right the garland.

And so they lived on and on in unlawful wedlock, moon by moon, and there was no talk of either looking to marry, as the father had prescribed. Too ardently they clung to each other, paced to the board hand in hand as ducal pair, and the pages sprang before them. But the latter were already winking one eye, even the Saracens, and as Hanegiff’s mysterious death had not gone unmarked, there was a whispering at court which sometimes broke out in loose talk. For the Sieur Wittich, a knight with crooked shoulder and loose mouth, said at table Duke Wiligis would certainly one day be famous for catching the unicorn if it went to sleep in his chaste sister’s lap. Then the foreign pallor of the young mistress turned a shadow paler, and her brother forgot to hide in time his fist under the table: all saw it on the cloth, the knuckles quite painfully white as it was clenched.