A VIGIL.
The last clit-clat of the Burgomaster’s stick on the threshold of the
artist’s house, left the Platz once more in silence; but Sabina’s
heart sank within her, for the scene, which had taken place under
the watchman’s very nose, had disturbed his slumbers, and he stirred
and grunted, but it was only with a view to settling himself more
comfortably; and after a few seconds—or was it an eternity?—the snoring
recommences with at least undiminished vigour, and Sabina ventures to
peer forth from her refuge.
By the almost unceasing lightning flashes, she can clearly discern the
little door of the Saint Thomas’ Chapel. Once across the open space
before her, and it will be gained.
In the next interval of darkness the courage of desperation seizes her,
and darting from her hiding-place, she speeds like the wind across the
Platz. Then on, round under the south-western wall, till, like some
hunted creature in sanctuary at last, she finds herself in the deep
sheltering arch of the chapel door. With hands which, for all they
tremble like storm-shaken aspen striplings, are still sure and apt, she
fits the key into its lock. Easily and noiselessly the thing does its
work, and stepping across the threshold, she carefully closes the door
behind her, and stands in the Cathedral—alone.
Alone! So her wordless prayer was that she might be. And yet at the
thought a mortal terror thrilled her. The world is so wise now-a-days,
so scientific, so intellectual, so reasonable, so positive in the
classifying and labelling of nature’s every secret, that nobody worth
the name of anybody would ever fall into the mistake of trembling
and turning pale if chance did bring them into such a situation; but
with Sabina, whose mind was a clear page in regard to every ology,
but brimful of saints and angels, and spirits good and evil, and
well attuned with that of the princely student’s, who said: “There
are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our
philosophy,”—with her it was a vastly different thing. Standing there,
in the pitchy darkness, for she had neither thought, nor would have
dared to bring a light, only the fitful moonbeams to guide her, and the
forked steel-blue lightning illumining the vast edifice from end to
end, and from roof to the marble monuments, where many an effigy lay
stretched grim and rigid above the corpses resting below.
Not recklessly, not fearlessly the girl had come there. For her mind,
the supernatural with its awfulness, its alluring sweetness, was as
real—more real than the palpable conditions of her daily life. Had
it been foretold to her that she should ever do this that she was
doing now, she would have shudderingly declared death to have been
preferable; but there was that ruling her—ruling all her strength, all
her weakness, which made her whole being subserve its will, and clad
her heart in panoply strong as steel.
Brainsick and giddy, her limbs half paralysed with terror, Sabina
groped her way to the Horologe, and grasping its fluted columns, stood
and listened.
No sound but her own panting breaths—Ah! what long low rumbling is that
beneath her feet, shaking the Horologe to its base? TWELVE! The first
stroke of midnight booming out from the belfry overhead. Midnight and
alone. Midnight and the strange weird deeds beginning then within those
walls! In her mind’s eye, but there only, for the temporary gold and
crimson arras draping the arch of the Saint Thomas Chapel hid the tomb,
which otherwise would have been visible from where she stood,—in her
imagination, Sabina could see the awesome effigy of her namesake, the
sculptress Sabina von Steinbach, rising from her marble couch, and,
with white waving arms, and sad distraught eyes, pass gliding amid the
aisles of the mighty church.
But was the figure there? After all that was a question. Only the day
previously, Doctor Wolkenberg, looking in at the Burgomaster’s, had
happened to remark that Master Rudel had grumbled loudly at being
hurried over his work of renovation, and said the fault would not lie
at his door if it was made a bungle of in consequence; and that if it
was not for the sake of Professor Dasipodius, he would not attempt it.
This jeremiad reaching the Professor Dasipodius’ ears, he had begged
the sculptor on no account to vex himself by hurrying over it, for a
thing not thoroughly done was infinitely worse than not done at all;
and Sabina, whose mind was a storehouse of every syllable that people
ever said the Professor Dasipodius had said, naturally recalled this
little circumstance; and so, after all, was the figure there?
At intervals, which each time grow longer, and fainter and still
fainter, the moonbeams stream in through the windows far overhead on
to the Horologe; and Sabina’s eyes, lifted in trembling curiosity, can
see now Kaspar Habrecht’s exquisite carved work crowning its lofty
central apex, now the brilliant colouring of Radegund’s pictures round
the cornice, fair and soft in the silvery shimmering haze. Poor girl,
what ailed her to-night? But only a passing thought for Radegund now.
Sabina’s very terrors hushed at the sight of the gigantic wondrous
thing. She was striving to realize that it was indeed, as her touch
left no room to doubt, the solid structure, and not the mere baseless
fabric of those sad dreams for ever haunting her, sleeping and waking,
when Dasipodius had thrust her from him; and she had staggered, blinded
with misery and tears, against its panels, and the lustre of her love
had all faded out.
Almost on that spot itself, but a little to leftwards of it, she stood
now, gathering, as the moments passed, calmness to reflect over what
she has done—is doing, and asking herself, if in absolute truth and
fact she is standing alone in that vast silent Cathedral at dead of
night. All dark, utterly dark, but for the one gleam of light shining
like a star in extremest distance yonder before the high altar. If
that symbol of the Abiding Presence had always been a joy to her in
broad daylight, amid the stir of human life around, what was its
companionship now in this fearsome loneliness, when though outside the
earth might be fainting and groaning for heat, here all was still as
the very grave; and shiveringly she drew her long cloak closer about
her and listened. Not a sound besides the ever-rolling thunder, and
presently the rain falling heavily against the windows. The rush of it
was welcome to her, coming like some old familiar acquaintance out of
the ordinary work-a-day world, and nerving her to stand up on her feet,
and advance to the arras. If those were but lifted—and with a desperate
courage she laid hands on them—why then, yonder tomb—ONE! The low,
solemn clang arrested her hand; and long after its last wave of sound
had died away among the arches of the choir, she still stood with the
arras in her hands, not daring to stir.
Flash after flash of lurid light break over her, sheeting clear as day
legended window and lofty pillar. Thunderous peal upon peal burst,
as though the crack of doom were falling; but the awe she was wont
to feel at such stormful terrors plays a mere secondary part to that
nameless dread possessing her, of the dead sculptress’s monumental
tomb. Supposing that there in some way the hidden danger she has come
to grapple with should lie, and she—oh, coward little heart!—hangs
trembling on these curtains!
With a desperate courage she lifted them, and forced her scared eyes to
confront the dreaded thing as the next lightning flash fell.
Not there! Only the bare shining surface with its crimson cushion
at the upper end, of cunningly simulated crimson broidered velvet,
just as she had been used to see it all for these weeks past. And now
in the soul, where many and many a gentle tourney had been tilted
between Imagination and Reason, rose up a sore conflict touching
the whereabouts of that stately marble lady with her lovely still
face, whose faint tints on eyelids and lips did always but render its
corpselike aspect the more real; and her dress all gem-bordered—painted
gems indeed, yet faceted and polished so craftily, that they looked
as real as those upon her own gown. How strangely, the little woman
thought, with the feminine instinct faithful to her at even such a
time, fashion does repeat itself! To think that the dead Sabina von
Steinbach, dead two long hundred years, had worn such garments as would
pass muster in the fashionable world now! A little difference in detail
possibly, a degree less exuberance of ruff and furbelow, a trifle
less stiffness, a shade more of graciousness; but the girl, with her
abhorrence of modish extremes, always ordered all such uglinesses to
be toned down in her own dress, as far as the code permitted, and the
result was that the mediæval Sabina might have stood beside the Sabina
of the new era, and seemed no anachronism.
But what an appalling conclusion! Holy Virgin! It chilled her almost to
the petrifaction of the stone she had schooled herself to approach and
look upon. Almost she feels the dead woman’s hand upon her shoulder;
and, overpowered by her terror, she sinks down on the tomb’s broad
steps, sobbing and shrieking aloud, till the place echoes with her
hysterical cries. But no human help or harm comes to bid her cease. All
silent still, when at last the paroxysm subsides. It has brought her
overcharged spirit relief, saved her perhaps from losing sanity itself;
and rising from her lowly seat, she dares to stand leaning against the
tomb’s alabaster cornice. How stiflingly hot it has grown! So it seems
to her, out of the fevered heat supervening upon those chill damps of
an hour ago; and she gaspingly unclasps the cloak from about her neck!
Ah! what an idiot to cry and shriek out so; as if somebody—something
had—oh, for shame—for shame! Fine courage that! A little child put
to bed in the dark would not have been so foolish! What was there to
be afraid of? Here in a church, a sweet, lovely, beautiful church of
churches, protected, too, by God’s own dear Mother! Shame to dream of
being afraid! How many and many a time had good Bishop John, standing
in the pulpit yonder, told how this was none other than the house
of God, where day and night holy angels kept guard. Could she look
yonder, where the perpetual light gleamed, and be afraid, though all
the sheeted dead around her rose from their graves? Why, think of it
only! Outside in the dark world, how the storm was raging, and hearts
were quailing at its fury. Hark how the rain deluged and drove, and
the deafening thunder rolled, yet here, against God’s house, how calm
and still! How impotently the rage of the elements spends itself! The
very Ark, resting calm amid the seething waters, is this old Cathedral,
and——TWO!
Night wearing away, and with it the storm. Each lightning flash less
vivid, and the thunder sulkily rolling farther and farther in distance.
A little while, and the rain ceases, and bright through the clerestory
windows a star or two shines down from the deep cleared sky, and
still, her vigil undisturbed! but never for one instant the thought of
Gretchen’s warning sleeps. Like the burden of some antique song, she
murmurs again and again! Danger to him—to the Horologe! Danger! that is
her watchword—Danger!
THREE!
And now at last is the time at hand? Is it the storm which has delayed,
or perhaps destroyed, this that was to have happened? Soon it will
be daybreak. Two hours more, and the whole city must be astir, and
then—Listen! No! not a sound; and though dawn is so near at hand, all
black as midnight still. No ghastly lightning even to guide her now!
and not daring to stir, half sitting, drooping with her weary vigil,
she waits on, eagerly watching for the first ray of dawn which shall
help her to some pillar, some refuge where she can hide and watch.
Would the arras be safe? or below here, upon the tomb’s broad foot
paces, hidden under her cloak’s ample folds, or perhaps the shadows of
the Horologe itself, the Horologe, the Horo——FOUR!