“FINIS CORONAT.”
Not a cloud as big as a man’s hand dimmed the glory of that blue sky
shining over the old city on Saint Laurence’s day. The storm of the
past night had cleared the air of all the foul vapours and heaviness
loading it for weeks past; and a light cool breeze fluttered the flags,
and toyed with the garlands festooned about window, and sign, and
balcony of the Platz, until their wet leaves glistened again in the
morning sunbeams.
In and out about the Cathedral’s rugged walls the birds darted merrily,
chirrupping in the highest spirits, and perking and pluming with
uncommon care, as though they fully recognized the duty incumbent
on them, as part and parcel of the place, to be spick and span on
this notable occasion. Citizens and citizenesses, maids and matrons,
gallants and prentices, all pranked in their best, thronged the
streets; while farmers and rich peasantry, from many a Vosges village
and hamlet, kept flocking in towards the centre of attraction, and were
packed in the Cathedral aisles, until there was not room left for a pin
to drop between them. Veritably it seemed, as they said, as if the good
God had answered the prayer of many an expectant heart, and made a day
on purpose, so bright and fair it was.
Yet one thing lacked. What was it? Strangers had not set foot five
minutes within the city gates, before they asked themselves this
question, vaguely conscious that in some strange manner all the spirit
and life of a great general holiday were wanting. First and foremost,
what had become of the music? Not so much as a drum-beat’s echo, or
the faintest squeak of a fife! Feast, holiday, forsooth! Better have
stopped at home and listened to the cat purring! And then those knots
of folks, with mazed, awe-stricken faces, interchanging low hurried
words, more for all the world as if everybody had come together for a
funeral than for a merry-making. Hush! hush! Yes, death, indeed, hovers
low over Burgomaster von Steinbach’s roof-tree, stretching out his hand
for the Lily, where she lies broken and bleeding, with only a faint
fluttering pulsation at her brave heart to tell that life is still
there.
And then from mouth to mouth flies the strange story, until by eight
o’clock every mother’s son and daughter has at fingers’ ends, with
all the _ad libitum_ variations of each individual fancy, how Syndic
Tobias Hackernagel, miserable villainous wolf in the dark that he
was, broke last night into the Cathedral to destroy the Horologe; and
how—there is the marvellous part of it—how little Mistress Sabina von
Steinbach, Burgomaster Niklaus’ daughter, was beforehand with him and
saved it; and how it chanced she had saved Master Dasipodius too, when
the wretched scoundrel would have murdered him, and the knife struck
her instead, somewhere in the shoulder, for she threw herself upon the
blind man and hung there like a shield; and there she lies—a-dying? Ah
Heaven! canst thou be so bitter cruel as that? And then for the woe
that has stricken their good honest Burgomaster, not alone women’s
tears fall fast, but men’s eyes glisten, now sad, now ragefully; and
with low passionate clamourings, they demand if the prison walls hold
fast that would-be assassin?
Ay, ay, safe enough, safe enough, so much is certain. They had him down
and bound in an eye’s twinkling; but for the rest, all is a riddle, and
threatens to remain so for some time to come; since from the moment
of his arrest, Hackernagel, man of law that he is, has not uttered a
syllable, saving all his eloquence for the defence he is no doubt busy
concocting, and Tobias is as dumb as lead.
Inside the Cathedral, things are terribly at sixes and sevens. There
seems to be not a creature about to marshal the crowd, or to tell
people their assigned places. Barriers are disregarded, and individuals
squeeze into nooks where they have no more business than bulls have in
china shops. City magnates puff and purple with indignation; while fine
ladies, who have fondly looked to being the observed of all observers,
are shunted and hustled every bit as much as the commonest clay there.
Disgusting! and to-morrow the managing committee shall know what they
think about it. Where, in the name of decency and order, is Prudentius
the sacristan, that he permits all this lamentable confusion?
Prudentius the sacristan, with a racking headache, and excruciating
pains in his limbs, and a conscience sorer than all, lies in durance
vile, some few hundred yards off, safe in his own bed, whither he has
been transported from a spot not far outside the city gates, where he
was found lying in the morning’s small hours, drenched through and
through, and altogether incapable of standing upon his legs, or of
lucidly accounting for his deplorable plight. The burden of certain
feeble and disjointed maunderings which escaped him, touching some
woman—“Yes, a woman, I tell you, a woman,” in no way influenced my
Lord Bishop to regard the unfortunate lay-brother’s misdemeanour in a
more favourable light; but at present Bishop John has little leisure
to bestow on the sinner and his enigmatical falling away. A whirl of
thoughts is perplexing his brain. Like some great actor, distracted
from his _rôle_ by the painful realities of his actual life, the Bishop
wonders how he is to go through with his very prominent part in the
ecclesiastical pageant which, shorn indeed of many of its most imposing
adjuncts, is still ordained to take place.
The very bells which were to have rung out such a merry peal, are
silent lest they should disturb the unconscious girl; and it is
certain that more than one gap will be left upon yonder crimson dais.
Burgomaster von Steinbach’s genial face must assuredly be missing; as
also, from circumstances over which he has no control, the countenance
of Syndic Hackernagel will be conspicuously absent. In yonder gallery
of fair dames, the sweetest flower among them all will not be seen.
And concerning Mistress Radegund, whose beauty some reckon more
peerless than even her cousin’s—just as some care more for roses than
for lilies—much speculation is rife, whether or no she will grace
the little band of horologists on the dais. Whether, circumstances
considered, she will hold it becoming—but there, it is worse than idle
to be hazarding conclusions over what Radegund will elect to regard
as becoming or unbecoming. And it must be conceded that there are two
sides to this case in point; and stop away or come, she will inevitably
shock some one’s sense of the proprieties, according to the respective
ratios at which they fix private and professional claims. Only on one
point all are assured, that Mistress von Steinbach will do as she
chooses, utterly uninfluenced by any second opinion.
Soon the question settles itself; she is there. If that woman on the
Horologist’s dais in the magnificent robe of purple velvet, slashed
with cloth of gold, be indeed Radegund von Steinbach? If those
stern-set features and hollow eyes, encircled with dark rings, making
her look more like a galvanized corpse than living woman, can be the
brilliant artist. No glimmer of a smile relaxed the drawn pale lips,
as she turned to acknowledge the murmur of applause greeting her
appearance; and not a word has she for those about her. With a glance,
half careless, half curious, she looks round. In search perhaps of
Bruno Wolkenberg. But Bruno is not there. This moment of Radegund’s
triumph his soul has so long thirsted for, has come, and does not
find him there to see; for Doctor Wolkenberg is busy, duty has called
him elsewhere, and he sits watching in that darkened chamber in the
Munster-gasse. Yet he has found time to implore Radegund to renounce
her intention of going to the Cathedral. “Will my not going give the
child back her life?” she said hardly. “Is the world to come to an end
because she——”
“Nay,” interrupted Bruno, jarred in spite of himself by her tones. “If
not for that, then for your own life’s sake.” And then, with all the
eloquence his wrung heart could muster, he pleaded the consequences of
such a heavy tax on her own frame, weakened by the previous night’s
cruel attack upon it; that sickness to which the skilful master
of cause and effect could find no clue, or if he did, shrank from
following up. “You need rest; absolute rest.”
“Ay,” fiercely assented she. “Yes; and that one finds best in the
grave.”
“Radegund—why,” he said brokenly, “why will you speak like this to
me—to me—Radegund?”
“Because—psha! Bruno, tell me now, am not I indeed fit, as you call it,
to go? Will you really not answer for my life if I go?”
He turned from her with a moaning sigh.
“Answer me, Bruno. Why, come now. Come, Doctor Bruno Wolkenberg! Am
I a patient to be fooled and put off with some puling lie? Tell me
true—Bruno, dear Bruno, then, dear kind friend—Bruno,” and the hot
hands sought his. “Tell me, is my life come indeed to be so weak a
thing, that I might forfeit it just by only crossing over into yonder
church?”
“I tell you—yes,” he said.
“Then it is hardly worth trying to keep,” she returned contemptuously.
“One had better break than bend, I take it. Now go—where they want you,
Doctor Wolkenberg.” And with the abrupt dismissal, she rose and left
him; and summoning her servant, she, with many a pause for battling
with the deadly faintness oppressing her, stood dressed at last, and
refusing all aid but Otto’s arm, found herself in the seat reserved for
her on the Professor Dasipodius’ right hand.
The hem of her rich raiment straying across his footstool, first tells
him of her presence; but sparing her no syllable of greeting, he turns
to exchange a word or two with Isaac Habrecht on his left. From the
building’s furthermost recesses the mathematician’s appearance has been
greeted with applause, prolonged and deep, but not loud. The enthusiasm
which the sacredness of the place would hardly have restrained, was
chastened down into something of awe at the aspect of the blind man,
on whom every eye was fixed. There were few in that vast concourse
unacquainted in more or less garbled fashion with the events of the
past night, and few consequently who were not able in some degree to
participate in the feelings which must be ruling him at that moment;
and sympathy with these increased tenfold, when all notwithstanding,
the people found he had kept faith with them, and the acclamations they
would fain have offered him, spent themselves in a hushed respectful
murmur.
One of rumour’s tongues said Dasipodius had been wounded; others said
no such thing; but all could see in his face that some mental wound,
sharper than keenest sword-thrust, agonized him; that he had passed,
nay, was passing through some ordeal too terrible for words. Radegund
von Steinbach, looking upon him now, was not the only one recalling
more strongly than ever the picture over yonder in the Saint Laurence
Chapel. A solemn, mysterious beauty rested upon the features composed
into such stern endurance, lending them a softness which rendered them
not all stern; and about the temples, grown somewhat worn and shadowy,
and over the resolute mouth, shone a tender light, repressed and
dimmed for many a month past, but now infinitely sweet in its sadness.
Standing there, in the presence of that vast crowd, the observed
of all, seeing no ray of earth’s light, his spiritual beauty spoke
silently eloquent, drawing, as it ever did, men, women, and little
children, and all God’s creatures to love and trust him.
Master Dachstein’s music is gloriously beautiful; as it peals forth its
pæan, the long train of richly-vested ecclesiastics and white-robed
choristers winds with cross and banner, gleaming amid fragrant incense
clouds, towards the high altar, bathed in the sunlight streaming down
through the painted choir windows.
A few years more and the old Faith is to lie trampled to the dust
within those walls, crying: Ichabod! Ichabod! but to-day the glory of
her glows out unshadowed by any threatening darkness of desolation;
grand in her ceremonial as ever she has been, since the days when good
King Pepin set the corner-stone of the venerable shrine. And yet, the
rich colour, the sweet triumph song, seem to jar upon the senses. The
very Horologe itself, the fulcrum and motor of all this concourse of
humanity, is being regarded with something very near to a secondary
interest. Only at last, when Bishop John bestows with uplifted hand his
benediction on the all sorts and conditions of assembled Christians,
and from the lips, which for the nonce have laid aside their
differences, responds one deep Amen, and midday is upon the stroke,
attention undivided and absorbed is devoted to the Horologe, while
the eyes of him who, yet seeing nothing, has been the work’s creator,
are fixed attent, till the first burr, and a succession of clicks and
snappings and whirrs, proclaim all to be in motion. Then breaks forth
from thousands of lips a rapturous murmur, and upon those upturned
faces one simultaneous grin of delight, as one after the other of
the automata go through their evolutions in just the very self-same,
confident, dogged, wooden way that they do now.
To descant upon the satisfaction of that moment is, however, a
superfluity, since who that runs may not still read? “The famous clock
remains uninjured,” reported the war correspondents, when bullets and
cannon balls were riddling the brave old city not so many years ago.
Uninjured in spite of all! And tourist pilgrims may still enjoy for
themselves any day of the week the wonderful clock’s performance; for,
guide-book in hand, before Master Dasipodius’ Horologe, still gathers
daily a motley group, native and alien, and if no cruel wars come, are
likely to do for as long as any youth lingers in this old planet.
Providence be praised, it is not all beaten out of her yet; and royal
princes, gaitered bishops, gaping country folks, dreamy poets, beauty,
intellect, aristocrats, socialists, Philistines, philosophers, old men
and maidens, and matrons, make a point of seeing the Horologe in all
its glory of full working power when they pass through Strassburg city.
Of course, with human ingratitude they smile when the performance is
over, and pooh-pooh the Horologe for a clumsy piece of absurdity; but
the real test is the rapt attention it earns while it is in motion. And
like a clever actor, only wider fame accrues to it by criticism.
Now too, as then, the crowing cock wins special appreciation. “And his
wings, Kaspar?” asks the mathematician, laying his hand on the boy’s
shoulder, with a faint enquiring smile, as the wooden chanticleer’s
whoopy screech strikes his ear. “They flap well—yes?”
“Perfectly, master,” answers the young woodcarver, a transient smile of
pleasure lighting up the face which has hitherto mirrored the sadness
of Dasipodius. And he flushes with pride, for does he not hear his name
whispered from mouth to mouth in the crowd below?
“Splendidly!” ejaculates Otto von Steinbach, sinking down with a gasp
of satisfaction, whose intensity is only known to himself. “Perfectly,
by Jove! and never a jerk. Scoundrel!” but though his eyes are fixed
fiercely on the wooden lord of the farm-yard, his animadversion is not
addressed to it, but at some absent object, vividly evolving in his
imagination.
The ex-chief horologist does not share prominently in the day’s
proceedings; does not desire to do so, perhaps, but modestly remains
as much as possible in the background, and that even when his name is
signalized with those of his brother horologists.
Nevertheless Otto has his consolations.
So for the first time the Horologe plays its part, and a brilliant
success it is.
And the price of it?