Читать книгу The Hour Will Come: A Tale of an Alpine Cloister. Volumes I and II - Wilhelmine von Hillern - Страница 20

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High up on the rocks above the village of Burgeis stands a watch tower of faith, the monastery of Marienberg, with heaven-reaching towers and pinnacles, proudly looking far out and down into the night. Torn, and as though weary, the clouds hang about the mountain peaks that surround it, and the snow storm beats its exhausted wings against the mighty walls; it has spent its rage over night and its power is broken. Now and again between the parting clouds glimmers the pale crescent of the setting moon; below, in the valley, a cock crows betimes to announce the coming morning, but up in the convent as well as down in the village all are sunk in sleep, no ray of light illumines any one of the numberless rows of windows, with their small round panes set in lead; only in the porter's room on the ground floor a feeble light is burning and keeping watch for the sleeping door-keeper. Three blows of the huge iron ring on the back door are suddenly heard. The porter starts up, his lamp has burnt low, warning him that it will soon be morning. He goes out with his clattering bunch of keys in his hand; meanwhile the knocking has been hastily and imperatively repeated.

"Who is out there at this early hour?" He asks cautiously.

"The beginning and the end--an infant and an old man," is the answer.

"What am I to understand by that?"

"Open the door and then you will know."

"I must first fetch the Superior. At such an unwonted hour I cannot open to any one without his sanction." And he goes back into the house and wakes the Superior, who glances with alarm at the hour-glass thinking he has overslept himself. It will soon be the hour of matins.

"Come out quickly," cried the gatekeeper. "A stranger asks to be admitted--I dared not open the gate without your permission."

The Superior threw on his frock and cowl and stepped out.

"An old man and a child--as he says--" continued the porter, as they crossed the courtyard.

"Open the gate," said the Superior, as the wail of an infant apprised him that the stranger outside had spoken the truth. The porter obeyed and at the door, with the infant on one arm and in his other hand the torch, stood the old monk from St. Valentine's.

"Blessed be the Lord Christ! Brother Florentinus! How come you here this wild night--and what have we here for a whimpering visitor?" cried the Superior, admitting the old man.

"Aye, you would never have thought that my stiff old arms would be bringing round such a fragile, wriggling thing.--But take me quickly to the reverend Abbot that we may take counsel in the matter--for the child is hungry and needs womanly care."

"The bell will soon call to matins," said the Superior. "Wait here in the court-yard till the first stroke, and then you will be sure that no bad spirit crosses the threshold with you. Meanwhile I will go and announce you to his reverence, the Abbot."

"Aye, you are right, brother, the child must enter the convent at a lucky hour, for he must stay in for ever."

The Superior asked no more--the brethren were accustomed to suppress all curiosity and to accept inexplicable occurrences in silence. He went in and the gate-keeper remained outside with the old man. They stood there expectant, till the first stroke should sound that should scare away the hordes of bad night-spirits.

Florentinus extinguished his torch, for the light from the porter's window lighted up the narrow court-yard.

"To-day is a great festival, and the fathers were making preparations far into the night," said the porter. "You did not think of that?"

"I do not know what you mean," said the old man. "To-day is no saint's day?"

"This day, a hundred years ago, anno Domini 1150, the edifice of this godly house was begun by Ulrich of Trasp, and a great thanksgiving service is to be performed in honour of the noble founder."

"To be sure I might have known it. Your house is ten years younger than ours and we too, ten years since, had a thanksgiving to our founder, Ulrich Primele."

"But you must not let our reverend brethren hear you say that our foundation is younger than yours, for they may take it ill in you. You know of course that our holy house was built two hundred years ago at Schuls, and was only transferred here because at Schuls and at St. Stephen we were so often visited by fire and avalanches."

"I know, I know," nodded the old man. "I did not mean to cast any reflection on the venerable antiquity of your foundation. God grant it may increase and prosper. It is still a sure bulwark against the decay of all conventual discipline in these days--God save us--the rule of St. Benedict is often followed in outward semblance only, but your severity is everywhere famous."

"Now!" said the guardian, opening the door for the old man. Solemnly and with silvery clearness, the bell for matins rang out. Inside the convent, all was alive at once. One after another, the windows were lighted up but without noise, as in a magic lantern. Brother Florentinus stepped into the hall. Door after door opened, and the dark figures of the monks slipped out in their soft sandals, and glided noiselessly down to the chapel along the long corridor. The deepest "silentium" reigned in the dusky passages and halls--that sacred silence by which the still dormant soul prepares itself to wake up to prayer. But the crying of the hungry baby disturbed the solemn stillness, and the fathers paused in astonishment, and gathered full of wonder and bewilderment round the screaming child. The guardian called the old man to come into the refectory with the infant, and the brethren went in to matins, shaking their heads over this strange visit. The Abbot, a reverend man of near seventy years, was standing in the refectory when Florentinus entered.

"What is this strange story that our brother, the Prior, tells me? You, Florentinus, bring us a child--a new-born infant. Where, in the name of all the saints, did you pick it up, and what have we to do with the helpless baby?"

"Most reverend Abbot, kindly lend me your attentive ear, and then your questions will be answered. But first of all I beseech your grace to allow that a woman may be fetched out of the village to suckle the child, for it has been starving these three hours."

"That cannot be, Brother Florentinus; a woman in the convent! What are you thinking about? You know very well that our order allows no women but princesses to come within our walls."

"Your reverence, it must be," said Florentine fearlessly; "I promised the babe's dying mother in your name that it should be received this day within the sheltering walls of Marienberg, and 'he will help a poor soul to keep her vow,' the dying woman said. He is the child of the noble Lady of Reichenberg."

The Abbot clasped his hands.

"What--where did you see her?"

"We found her at night on the heath, where her child had been born out in the snow. She is now lying in our house at St. Valentine's--dead."

The Abbot grasped his forehead with his hand as if he thought he was dreaming.

"The Lady of Reichenberg, the angel of Ramüss! What has happened to her?"

"She was repudiated by her husband on account of your relative Egno of Amatia; he fell in trial by combat. But the wife was innocent nevertheless, the child is Swyker of Reichenberg's child; but he cast it out to the birds of the air, and loaded it with the heaviest curses. In order that the curses might not take effect, she dedicated it to the cloister."

The Abbot Conrad took the child tenderly in his arms.

"Yes, poor orphan, you shall find a home here; none on earth are motherless to whom the church opens her sheltering bosom."

Then he went to the door, and called the Superior.

"Hasten without delay down into the village, and find some good woman who will undertake to care for the infant's bodily needs; the convent will reward her richly. She may live in the Lady Uta's east turret-chamber; there she will be hidden from the eyes of the brethren; and you may also open the Lady Uta's chest for her use and the baby's. Make the room ready so that it may look comfortable and habitable, and that the woman may not feel as if she were a prisoner."

The guardian brother hurried away.

"The church must give to each severally that which he needs, why should she let the suckling starve that wants a mother's breast--she, the All-bountiful, the Mother of all," he went on, giving the child back to the old man. "In such an unprecedented case it is allowable to make an exception to the rule, to save a soul for the church."

"You are great and wise, my Lord Abbot," cried Florentinus with grateful joy, and rocking the child on his arm to quiet it. "It is strange how soon one gets used to a little thing like this. I have quite set my old heart on this little brat, it is so helpless and forsaken!"

"It is no longer helpless nor forsaken," said the Abbot gravely. "When matins are over, and the child has been properly attended to we will baptise it. Meanwhile tell me in detail all that has happened, for it must all be recorded in the chronicles of the monastery, as is fitting."

He seated himself in the deep arm-chair at the upper end of the table, supporting himself on the monstrous dragon's heads which formed the arms of the seat.

Brother Florentinus conscientiously narrated the melancholy occurrences of the night.

"The body must be fetched and interred in the church," said the Abbot, "but without any inscription, for if we are to carry out the dead lady's vows we must efface every trace of her. Nay, the boy himself must never learn who his parents were, so that none of his family may dispute our right to him."

"You are always wise and choose the right, most reverend Abbot," Florentinus again declared.

They heard a sound of hasty steps on the stone floor of the corridor, and the Prior knocked at the highly ornamented door.

"Come in, in the name of the Lord," cried the Abbot.

The door opened, and a handsome young woman entered, whose fine, tall figure was poorly clad in miserable rags. She remained standing timidly at the door.

"Here is a woman who will be a mother to the child, if your reverence thinks proper."

"What is your name?"

"Berntrudis."

"Only think, after the pious waiting maid of the Lady Uta of Trasp, our noble foundress."

"She was my great-grandmother's sister."

"You come of a good stock, so I hope the fruit too is of a good sort," said the Abbot kindly.

The woman was modestly silent.

"I know you already by sight. You are the wife of the fisherman whose business it is to catch fish in the lake for the convent."

"Yes."

"How old is your child?"

"Two weeks."

"Is it a girl or a boy?"

"A girl."

"And you feel that you can nurse another child as well?"

"Six, if you like," said the woman smiling, and showing two rows of dazzling white teeth.

"Good, healthy and strong," said the Abbot to the Superior; "but," he added in Latin, casting a thoughtful glance at the blooming figure before him, "the brethren must not come in her way, you must be answerable for no scandal coming of it." Then he said to the wet-nurse,

"Take the child then, in the name of the Lord. The Prior here knows where your room is, and will see that your own child is brought to you. You may go at your pleasure into the convent-garden so long as the brethren are at vespers or at their meals, but you must never on any account go outside the convent-walls. You are henceforth under the rules of the order, and must submit to live like a nun. Will you?"

The woman hesitated a little, but then said,

"Well--yes; it will not last for ever."

The old white-bearded men looked at each other and shook their heads,

"Oh women--women!"

"Take her away," said the Abbot to the Superior, laying the child in her arms. "Now do your duty, and the convent will give you a handsome reward."

The woman pressed the child compassionately to her bosom and was about to kiss him. But the Abbot checked her severely.

"You are never to kiss the child--do you hear? under the severest penalties; so that the boy may not be accustomed from his cradle to foolish caresses and wanton tenderness, for they are not seemly for a son and future servant of the Church. No woman's lips may ever touch him--not even those of his nurse."

The woman looked at the Abbot half-surprised and half-indignant.

"Oh! you poor, poor little child!" she murmured in her Rhætian dialect. "But--when no one sees us I will kiss you, all the same," she thought, and followed the Superior out of the room. The two old men looked at each other and again they shook their heads.

"Who would have thought of telling us, brother Florentinus, that at the end of our days we should be inspecting a wet-nurse?" said the Abbot laughing. "So it is, the unclean stream of life penetrates even the strongest convent walls and fouls the very foot of our sacred altars."

"It is the duty of the strong to help the weak," said Florentinus simply, "and such a humble labour of love disgraces no one, be he ever so high!"

The Abbot nodded assent.

"Now come to the chapel, brother Florentinus, else we shall miss the mass."

With slow steps they passed along the corridor and into the choir of the darkened church, which was lighted only by the scattered wax-lights of the brethren who were deciphering their manuscript breviaries. A grateful fragrance of pine-wood pervaded the consecrated place and, so far as the scattered tapers allowed, a number of festal garlands were visible, made of pine-branches and red-berried holly twisted round the pillars and carvings by the brethren who, during the night, had thus decorated the chapel for the coming anniversary; and with hearts lifted up in praise the two old men knelt down to perform their deferred devotions.

Meanwhile the Superior had conducted the wet nurse through the spacious building to the eastern tower. A shudder came over her as she felt her way up the narrow spiral stairs, while the pine torch held by the Prior--who let her pass on in front of him--threw her gigantic shadow on the steep steps before her, and the solid masonry on each side. It was so damp and cold, so uncannily still, so painfully narrow--she felt as if a weight lay on her breast. "Where am I going? How high will this take me?" She begins to get giddy. Turning after turning--always one turn more--till she turns round with the stairs, and the stairs with her--she feels as if she were spinning round and round on one spot and yet she gets higher and higher, farther and farther from mother earth on which till this day she has always walked, which hitherto she has tilled with her own hands, in poverty and want, but happy in her labour and free!

She climbed wearily up with the child, frequently treading on her gown, for she had never before mounted steps in her life; she had lived in a humble hut under a scanty straw-roof, or in the fields and meadows. She had never thought it possible that men should build such tall high dwellings, and she was seized by a secret terror, a real anguish of fear, lest she should never be able to get down again.

The Superior spoke to her. "Only a few steps more, and it will be done; we shall be at the top directly--in a moment." But the steps seemed to grow before her, and her guide's "directly" was half an eternity to the poor frightened soul. At last she almost hit her head against some wooden beams and rafters; she was under the roof, and before her was a small low door covered with curious iron-work; this was the turret-chamber which she was to inhabit. She stood despondingly in front of the door, but her guide opened it, stooped and went in before her--she too had to stoop in order not to hit her head as she entered the room. However, she was used to low doorways, that did not scare her, and inside the room it was not so inhospitable as on the dark, stone, spiral stairs. A first glimmer of day-light shone in through the lens-shaped panes of the turret window; it was only a narrow opening, high up in a deep niche in the wall, but three stone steps led up to it and a stone seat was built at the top of them so that one could look out at the distance or down into the valley according to fancy. A homely bedstead, brown with age, stood by the wall with a heavy wooden sort of roof, like a little house by itself, and curtains of faded Byzantine silk. Old and clumsy as it was, to the poor woman who was accustomed to sleep on nothing but straw, it appeared strangely magnificent, and she felt as if some one must be hidden in it--some grand personage, before whom she must bow low and speak softly so as not to disturb the sleeper. Puffy-cheeked cherubs were carved on the four bed-posts, just like round balls with wings attached to them. The walls were whitewashed and painted with saints; the little ivory crucifix over the embroidered but faded praying-stool seemed to greet her as a friend, and a cheerful fire crackled in the chimney. It was an ancient and venerable little room and it had an oppressive and solemn smell like that of a reliquary--partly of dried rose-leaves and partly of mould. The Prior showed her a large worm-eaten chest full of costly linen; as he opened the heavy lid the dust flew off in a cloud and little spiders scampered away.

"Look here," he said kindly, "You are in the room which was formerly occupied by the Lady Uta of Trasp, the wife of our blessed founder, when she came here on a visit from St. Gertrude's. She had this trunk full of linen clothes brought here for her use and desired that whoever might stop here as a guest should have the benefit of it for their use and comfort. So now you may wrap yourself and the baby in it; it will bring you a blessing, for it was spun by the innocent hands of the Lady Uta and her maids, and many a fervent prayer has been said over it." Berntrudis looked thoughtfully down at the linen garments; it touched her to think that her ancestress, the pious Berntrudis, should have helped with her hands to spin the web in which she, so long after, might clothe herself. But she would not waste time in unpacking the treasure, she pitied the hungry child.

"Go now, Brother Superior," said she, "while I give the child a drink, and when my husband comes with my little girl, send him up at once."

But the Prior put on a considering face. "What--" he said, "your husband up to you? That is not feasible; you heard--you are now under convent rule!"

The woman started up in horror.

"What! my husband may not come to see me! I shall never see him again? Then take your child back again. I will not stop. I will go away on the spot."

"Oh! what a wild fury!" exclaimed the horrified Prior, "to fly into such a passion at once; think of the sacred place you are in--would you cause a scandal among our chaste brethren by your foolish worldly affections?"

"That is all one to me. Only I must see my husband once more, else I shall die of heartache--if I had known it I would never have come--never, never."

"Think of the high wages--you will be made rich by the gratitude of the convent, your house will be raised, your husband freed most likely, absolved from his bondage to the convent--"

"That is all one to me," repeated the woman with increased vehemence. "If I can never see my husband I will not stop--do as you will," and she laid the baby on the bed and was hastening past the Prior and out of the room, but he held her back.

"In the name of all the Saints--stay; will you leave the poor child to starve? There is not another woman in the village who can nurse it and take care of it. Can you be so cruel?"

The woman burst into tears, and turned to the bed again.

"No, you shall not starve, poor little orphan--you cannot help it!" and she seated herself on the edge of the bed, took the child pitifully in her arms and unheedful of the monk clasped it to her breast; the child drank eagerly while her tears ran down upon it. The Prior turned away and stood puzzled. He remembered how in his childhood he had never dared to vex his mother while she was nursing his little brother for fear the baby should not thrive, if the milk were turned by her anger. What should he do now to soothe the wet-nurse?

"Listen to me," he said at last, "I know of another way out of the difficulty for you; I will allow you to see your husband again, outside the convent gate, now and then for half an hour; that I will take upon myself. If that will satisfy you, we are all content--the child, ourselves and you."

The woman sighed, but she nodded assent in silence. It was better than nothing, and she felt she could not let the child starve, she could never be happy with her husband again, if she had loaded her conscience with such a dreadful sin for his sake.

"Are you content with that?" asked the Prior again, for he had not seen her nod. The child had drunk till it was full and had gone to sleep; she laid it on the bed, she could not speak, but she went up to the Prior and kissed his hands in the midst of her tears.

"That is all right then," said he, glad of this happy turn, "I will see whether your husband is already waiting with the child and then you can speak with him at the little gate while we baptise this one. You shall be allowed to do so once every week. And I will get our brother, the carpenter, to carve you out a cradle that you may lay the baby in it, and you will see that you will not want for anything."

The monk closed the door behind him and the woman went up to the little loop-hole and pressed her hot brow against the small round panes. In the early dawn she could hardly see the roofs of Burgeis deep down in the valley and the scattered huts around it on the declivity and on the opposite side on the mountains freshly covered with snow. Hers was down there too, she could distinguish it quite plainly, for her sturdy, industrious husband had built it better and bigger than the others, and had loaded the thatch with heavy stones. The crowing of cocks from far and near came up from the depth below--so homelike! and hers among them--she knew his voice! She pressed her hand over her eyes--it was like a dream that she should be mounted up here in the lonely turret-chamber--so lonely; so high, high up, as if she were in prison.--Oh! if it were but a dream, if only she could wake up again in her husband's arms, in her own humble hut; never again would she follow any one who might come to tear her away from her husband's fond heart. How could she have done it--how ever could she have done it.