THEKLA AND EBERHARD
Eberhard, Albrecht, and Ulrich, wandering students, came into Hauptberg
on a winter noon, and knowing the town, made straight for the Golden
Eagle, an inn loved by all vagabond students, young and not so young,
“new men,” “poets” as against schoolmen, lovers of the pagan knowledge,
droppers of corrosives upon the existing order, prophets of a world
behind this-world, the humanist left. The Golden Eagle stood in an angle
of the town wall, high red-roofed, shining-windowed, kept by Hans Knapp
and Bertha his wife. The December sun made vivid all the red roofs of
Hauptberg, it turned the huge cathedral into something lighter than
stone, it tossed nodding sheaves of light among the prosperous burghers’
houses, it overwrote the walls of a monastery of Augustinian Hermits, it
added scroll and circle of its own to the ornamented storied front of
the mighty guild hall; and garmented the winter trees in the university
close. The bright and nipping air put ripe apple colour into the faces
of the various street-farers. These moved quickly, with bodies slightly
slanted, arms folded; if they were well-to-do, in woolen and furred
mantles. The poor also moved quickly, with unmantled shoulders shrugged
together. The town musicians were somewhere at practice. One heard a
great drum and horns.
In a number of the street-farers showed a degree of excitement, an
eagerness to exchange speech and views with acquaintances, or even with
non-acquaintances. This itch was evident in many who encountered the
incoming, wandering students. “From Wittenberg way? And what is the
news?”
Eberhard moved, a sinewy, bronzed, square-faced, blue-eyed fellow, in a
green jerkin and a brown cloak. Ulrich was solid and blond, to the eye a
benevolent young burgher, and to better apprehension a ramping
dare-devil. Albrecht, slight, dark, and quick as a lizard, was the
“poet,” with emphasis. He carried upon his back Virgil and Terence and
Ovid, Cicero, and Seneca and Juvenal bound in a pack with Averroës,
Avicenna, and Avicebron, and when he was not in earnest made good love
songs and praised the vine. When he was in earnest he treated with
vitriol the garden of Holy Church, much overgrown with weeds.
The three were in wild spirits. They had news and they gave it. Some who
received were terribly angered thereby, and some took with more or less
evident pleasure, with a kind of half-frightened exultation. One or two
said that wandering students were bred by the father of lies. A student
from the university saying this more loudly than was prudent, Ulrich,
moving amiably forward, took him by his girdle, swung him overhead, and
set him--_plank!_--in the gutter skimmed with ice. A brawl threatened,
Ulrich ready enough to stay for it. But Albrecht cried out that he was
in ecstasy, that he had a vision of the Golden Eagle, that Hans Knapp
was putting a log on the fire, Frau Knapp drawing the ale, and Gretchen
Knapp setting a pasty on the table! So they swung from the drenched
student and his somewhat timid backers. They had made miles that
morning, and hungered and thirsted, and they loved the Golden Eagle.
That is Albrecht and Ulrich loved it; Eberhard was a stranger in
Hauptberg.
Here was the steep red roof, and the swinging, creaking Eagle sign, and
the benches in the sun beneath the eaves, and the open door, and out of
the door coming a ruddy light, a good smell, and a sound of singing.
“That,” said Albrecht, “is the voice of Conrad Devilson!”
“Where Conrad is, is Walther von Langen.”
“Good meeting with them both!”
Conrad Devilson beat with his tankard upon the table of the Golden
Eagle.
“That day of joy,
That lovely day,
When Aristotle,
Thomas Aquinas,
Albertus Magnus,
William of Occam,
Duns Scotus,
Peter the Lombard.
The monk,
The priest,
John Tetzel,
The Archbishop of Mainz,
The bull _Exurge Domine_, and
The Power of Rome
Shall pass away!”
He had a voice that boomed and reverberated. In came the three wandering
students. “Why, here are others of the time’s darlings!” cried Walther
von Langen.
Conrad Devilson put down his tankard and got to his feet. “Eberhard,
Eberhard! Welcome to Hauptberg!”
He left the table to put his arm around Eberhard. “This is the man who
saved me from wolves in the Black Forest!--Then sat we down in the snow
and re-ordered the round world!”
“I remember,” said Eberhard, “that your world turned from east to
west!--Have you heard the Wittenberg news?”
Hans Knapp had a huge, great fire. His ale was famous, and so were Frau
Knapp’s pasties, one of which Gretchen now set upon the table. Gretchen
had a warm, sidelong glance, and cheeks and lips like roses. She was not
so young as once she had been, and she knew how to like all wandering
students and to keep all at arms’ length. Now she went about the inn
room like a large and cheerful rose. The fire roared in the
chimney--entered other patrons of the Golden Eagle. And all were men of
the new times--of the times that were growing newer and newer, the old
passing faster and faster into the new. A great part of the old
resisted, held fiercely back with cries and objurgations. But those who
came about the Golden Eagle were of the new, with its virtues and its
faults. Hans Knapp, grey-bearded, huge-paunched, merry-eyed, had himself
always stepped out with the new. The fire roared in the chimney, the
Wittenberg news flew around the room, danced in the corners and in the
middle. Arose loud discussion, the friendliness of substantial
agreement, the spice of accidental difference. Speculation, jubilation,
mounted high and mounted higher--men’s arms were over one another’s
shoulders, eager faces craned, eyes sparkled. The Golden Eagle knew
again the roaring blast of hope, excitement, the good, salt taste, the
rapid motion of mental adventure. Happy were the five wandering
students....
Said Conrad Devilson, “Let us go tell Gabriel Mayr and Thekla!”
The short afternoon was now at mid-stroke. Gabriel Mayr lived in a
small, red and brown house set between a woodcarver’s and a goldsmith’s.
Around the house went a ribbon of garden, with currant bushes and cherry
trees. Under a cherry tree in summer, in the chimney corner in winter,
sat Gabriel Mayr, about him all the books he could buy or borrow. He was
poor, but since his fifteenth year he had first purchased knowledge and
then purchased bodily food. Now he was eighty.
The Golden Eagle had been growing too heated. The crisp, clean cold
without refreshed, cleared heads. Conrad Devilson, Walther von Langen,
Eberhard, Albrecht, and Ulrich danced as they moved up the narrow
street. Eberhard made-believe to play, viol-wise, upon his staff. They
came to the small red and brown house.
“Is this the place?” asked Eberhard. “I used to dream, in Erfurt, of
Gabriel Mayr! So much work has he done, in his time, for the new,
splendid world!”
Conrad Devilson knocked, “Hola! Hola! Wandering students!”
The door opened. Thekla Mayr said, “Enter, wandering students!”
She stood, slender, between fair and brown, in a red gown of her own
weaving and fashioning. “Welcome, Conrad Devilson! Welcome, Walther von
Langen! Welcome to Hauptberg, Albrecht and Ulrich! Welcome--”
“Thekla, this is Eberhard Gerson who made and engraved the pictures for
‘The Silver Bridge.’ With Ulrich and Albrecht he left Wittenberg
yesterday.”
“Welcome, Eberhard Gerson!”
She went before them into a room where a fire burned, and in a great
chair, in its light, sat Gabriel Mayr. “Father, here are wandering
students! Here are Conrad Devilson and Walther von Langen, and Albrecht
and Ulrich and Eberhard Gerson who made the pictures for ‘The Silver
Bridge!’ And they have news from Wittenberg.”
Gabriel Mayr roused himself. “Wait, young men.... I am old.... It takes
time to get back into the blowing wind and the moving water.” He pressed
his hands against his brows, shook himself in the cloak that was wrapped
about him. He gathered energy as one blows coals with his breath. The
coals glowed, his eyes brightened, he straightened in his chair, back in
good measure came the old potency. “Wittenberg! Who comes from
Wittenberg! What is Martin Luther doing now?”
“He has taken the Pope’s bull in his hands and burned it outside the
town gate!”
“Ha-ah! Did he that?” Gabriel Mayr brought his hands together. “Thekla,
Thekla! Do you hear a world gate clanging?”
He sat in his great chair, about him the young men, the wandering
students. He wore a black cap, and from underneath his white hair
streamed and mingled with the long white hair of his beard. His features
were bloodless, his eyes sunken, but very bright. He looked a prophet,
such an one as, down in Italy, Michael Angelo was painting. His daughter
stood with her arm resting upon the back of his chair.
Mayr spoke on: “I knew that the vehemence of his ongoing would become to
that young man an urgent dæmon! Now he cannot stop. He is Samson! He
will carry away the gates upon his shoulders and the young and strong
will pour in upon a decrepit city.... It is well! It is written! The
city has become drunken and witless. Yet will some flowers be trodden
underfoot and works of art perish.... And he is Samson, he is not
Socrates.... Yet, Thekla, Thekla! We must rejoice! We make a half-step
toward freedom!”
Two of the wandering students cried out upon that. “A half-step! Do you
not call it more than that, Master Gabriel?”
Mayr raised and regarded his finely shaped, thin, corded, sensitive
hands. “Eighty years have I lived. I remember years when it seemed that
the snail and the world raced toward freedom, and the snail appeared to
win. And I remember years when it seemed that the world began to say,
‘We shall not get there unless we move faster!’ And now I remember years
when the snail seems left behind. And for a long while now we have
seemed to move faster and faster.... The ice is breaking and thawing in
the springtime.... Well, I worship before the springtime! But Freedom is
a great word and holds all other words. Pour into it all that you know
or guess of freedom, and yet it is not full.”
Eberhard spoke. “This is a cool and brimming pailful, Master Gabriel!
Every pailful makes more of the desert bloom.”
As he spoke he was looking at Thekla. She was looking at him. Their eyes
were talking--pure and sincere words of fellowship.
“You are right in that, Eberhard Gerson,” said the old man. “Every
pailful makes more of the desert bloom!”
Thekla spoke. “It has been believed that God was not to be come at save
through officers and courtiers.... What is here is that it is seen that
no other human being stands between a human being and God.”
“So,” said Gabriel, and “So,” echoed the wandering students.
“Each growing straight to God, without running to any man’s door for
permission.... Much is wrapped up,” said Thekla, “in that bundle!”
“Aye, truly!”
Thekla stood beside Gabriel’s chair. Her hands were young where his were
old. The blue veins did not rise, her hands were not worn thin nor
corded like his. But they were made like Gabriel’s, sensitive and most
expressive like Gabriel’s. They commanded the eye as did his, they had
their own intelligence. Now they were in motion. “All equal,” said
Thekla ... “A republic.”
“In religion, the schools, art and knowledge!”
“The blowing wind will not bend the Black Forest and leave the Hartz
Forest unbowed. Spring will not come to the Hartz Wood and leave the
Black Wood bare. Without Pope ... without Emperor!”
“Come back, Thekla, from far away!”
“Every slave freed--”
“Come back! Come back!”
“Dawn for women--dawn for women!”
Above her moving hands Thekla’s face flushed like a rose. “As the Church
to all, so have been men to women!... The Church might have become just
from within, but does not, and the folk break down the gates of the city
and take their own! But now, surely, the freeing folk will free on and
on! And surely men will become just from within!” She raised her hands.
“I shall go about the world as I will, and I shall build my ships and
sail therein!... And my sister Elsa will come from her nunnery!”
Gabriel Mayr nodded his head. But he sat in his great chair with sinews
grown sunken and unbraced. His eyes had lost point, they seemed the eyes
of one who contemplates a dream, recurrent but unsubstantial. Yet he
nodded his head....
But Walther von Langen said roughly: “I am fond of Thekla, save when she
speaks without knowledge!”
“No harvest ripens for man,” said Albrecht, “but woman may gather a good
windfall in her apron!”
Quoth Ulrich: “When the house is afire the house-father brings out the
house-mother no less than himself!--But that does not mean that she then
goes about to set up for herself!”
“Women are women, but Thekla has lived beside a thinker of long and bold
thoughts. Thekla cannot help herself!” Conrad Devilson lifted one of her
long, brown tresses. “Remain fair, Thekla, and all women! Pick up in
your apron the windfalls, and welcome! But we own and shake the tree.”
Ulrich and Albrecht, Conrad Devilson and Walther von Langen struck hand
on hand or feet against the ground. “So it is!” they cried. “So it is!”
Thekla drew the tress of hair from Conrad Devilson’s hand. She stood
with eyelids drooped, her lips curved in a slight smile.
The old man who seemed to make the clasp of the ring shook his head and
sighed. “This matter of Owning is a long story, and events are yet to
come.... I should like to see Albrecht Dürer try his hand on that....
Thekla, give me wine.”
Thekla left his side, then returned with a wheaten wafer and a cup of
wine. The old man ate and drank. She mended the fire for him, took away
the cup and plate, and, returning, seated herself upon a cushion on the
floor by his side. “Martin Luther has burned the Pope’s bull. Now will
the Pope bid the Emperor to put him under ban. Maybe he will be slain as
a heretic, and all persecuted who look to freedom. Maybe he will find
friends in high places, and the Emperor will check the Pope. Maybe, with
naught to aid but stronger light, he must fight both Emperor and Pope.
Maybe, aroused, the people will go with him. Maybe all will see
light--all--all!”
Eberhard, who had been silent before now, spoke. “If but many see, then
will the wheel go toward the light.... I do not think it is more than
twilight.... And, maiden, I believe not that man owns the tree, nor at
any time has been wholly the shaker thereof!”
Thekla turned and looked at him. “I sinned and you sinned, and yet will
we sin.... But now we know what either wishes, and lo, it is one wish,
and wished by one Self!”
Said Conrad Devilson, “What do you two speak about, there by
yourselves?”
He and Albrecht and Ulrich and Walther von Langen had risen from settle
and stool. “We must fare back to the Golden Eagle! Heinrich and Karl and
Johann come in to Hauptberg to-night.... Ah ho! Martin Luther has burned
the Pope’s bull!”
Without the small red and brown house, across the ribbon of brown
garden, in the narrow street red-flushed from the red west, three fell
to singing,--
“Down goes the old world,
Up comes the new!
Death on a pale horse
Rides down the proud--”
They sang with enthusiasm, but their ardour had youth and geniality.
They were wandering students, humanists, not reforming monks.
Eberhard and Conrad Devilson did not sing, but talked. They dropped a
little behind the big, fronting voices. Whatever was the one, Eberhard
was something more than wandering student--a man beginning to work with
a mind-moved hand. He walked now with a lit face. “They live there alone
together--the old man and his daughter?”
“Aye. He taught Thekla all he knew, as though she were a boy. It is a
mistake to say that women are not teachable! But they must keep
knowledge at home when they have got it.... He is past earning now. She
embroiders arms for the noble upon velvet, silk, and linen, and so earns
for both. He has another daughter--Elsa--in a convent twenty miles from
here.”
The wandering students were singing,--
“Round turns the wheel,
The wheel turns round!
Comes down the lord of all,
The wheel grows an orb--”
Now they were before the Golden Eagle, and out of door and window
floated voices of Heinrich, Karl, and Johann.
That was December. In February Charles the Fifth made to be drawn an
edict against Luther. The Diet sitting at Worms refused assent. April,
and Luther, at Worms, stood in his own defence, spoke with a great,
plain eloquence. Eloquence never saved a man against whom set the main
current of his time. The main current of his time going with him, Martin
Luther rode in a seaworthy boat. Storms there were, thunder and
lightning, tempest and a lashed ocean--but the boat rode. May, and Pope
and Emperor threatened that revolt and all who had share therein with
fire in this world and in the world hereafter. The revolt made itself a
stronger current.
In May, Eberhard Gerson came again to Hauptberg. He slept at the Golden
Eagle, and in the bright, exquisite morning sought out the house where
dwelled Gabriel Mayr and Thekla. The cherry trees were at late bloom,
and the morning breeze shook down the white petals. The house seemed to
stand among fountains.
Three times since that first December afternoon had Eberhard opened the
gate, come in between the cherry trees.
Gabriel sat in his armchair under the largest tree, beneath his feet a
cushion, about his shrunken frame, for all the May weather, a furred
cloak, gift of old pupils. His eyes were closed, he was sleeping in the
sun. Thekla sat beside him, embroidering upon a scarf arms of the
greatest Hauptberg family. When she saw Eberhard she put her finger to
her lips. He stood beneath the blooming trees; they gazed each upon the
other for a moment, then she rose, put aside the embroidery frame, and,
stepping lightly, moved from the sleeping old man. At some distance,
among the currant bushes, stood a wooden bench. She moved to this, and
Eberhard followed. Here they might mark the sleeper through an opening,
but for the rest the green bushes closed them round. The air was full of
a subdued, murmurous noise, bees, twittering birds, sounds from the
woodcarver’s house of the woodcarver’s trade.
“Came one yesterday,” she said, “who told us that now they are
preaching against monastic vows. He said that what is preached is
printed, and that it steals from overhead like the wind into cloisters,
that monks and nuns read.... Oh, that it might unbar the door for Elsa!”
“You love Elsa so.”
“She is younger than me. She is unhappy--Elsa, my sister!”
“How was it, Thekla, that your sister went there?”
Thekla gazed at the tree heads against the blue sky. “Ah, cannot you
remember a day when it seemed wisest and fairest to worship so--from a
cell? She dreamed that, and being young, she went. Then her inner need
travelled its own path, and it was hardly that path. But her body is
held there, though her mind has gone forth. All the customs of the place
clutch and bind too closely the growing being.... She would forth if she
could.”
“Who may know where all this deep rebellion will stop? Thekla, I see a
wider circle.”
“Oh, and I!... There is no stopping.”
Behind the small red and brown house a cock crew. The two listened. “The
crowing of a cock.... When I hear it from far away,” said Eberhard, “it
pleases me so! It seems the oldest, oldest sound....”
“He is a beautiful cock. His name is Welcome.”
“Welcome...?”
“Yes.... It is an old, old sound.”
The currant bushes almost closed them round. Above the currants showed
the snowy cherry trees, and above the cherry trees the high, steep, red
roofs of neighbouring houses. Thekla and Eberhard sat very still. “It
seems to me,” said Eberhard, “that we have known each other the longest
time--”
“The longest time.... I think that we live always, and only fail to
remember.”
“Known and loved.... What are we going to do now, Thekla?”
She looked at the sky above the trees. “We are going to free ourselves.”
“Free ourselves.”
“Yes. Free you--free me.”
“I am only beginning to earn. I have nothing but what I earn. I have
letters telling me of good work to be had at the next Court. I may paint
there the Prince’s portrait and those of his children. Moreover, he
would have drawings of Christ’s Parables that in woodcuts may be
scattered like seed over the land.... But it is far from Hauptberg.... I
know not when I shall see you again.”
She looked at him. In her eyes shone tears, but in her countenance
something smiled. “Have we not to learn that everywhere we see each
other?”
Gabriel Mayr called her from under the cherry tree.
That year Eberhard the artist did good and true work. He painted the
portraits of the Prince and his children, he saw put forth in woodcuts,
far and wide, ten great drawings of Christ’s Parables.
A year and more, and he came again to the red and brown house between
the woodcarver’s and the goldsmith’s. This time the cherries were ripe,
the birds were pecking them. This time Gabriel lay abed, within the
house. He spoke to Eberhard standing beside him. “My ship is tugging at
her binding ropes.... Thekla has something to say to you. It is about
Elsa. I approve. I cannot talk any more to-day.”
Thekla gave him water and wine. A girl of twelve, an orphan for whom
they made a home, took her place beside the bed. Thekla and Eberhard,
moving to the outer room, talked beside the window. “Through the land,
here and there and everywhere, monks are coming from their cells. Here
and there a nun, stronger than the rest, comes forth.... I went to hear
Martin Luther speaking in the market-place. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘Come forth,
monk, who seest now that, seeking God, thou mistookest for him an
earthly giant! And come forth, nun, and stand side by side with thy
brother the monk! Look within, and see the one God, who wills that both
be free!’”
“Yes,” said Eberhard, “I have heard him preach that.”
“I have been to the convent. I have seen Elsa. She would leave her cell
and come freely home, to live and work hereafter as need will have it.
But she is not where she can say, ‘I mistook myself: Let me go at will
as I came at will!’”
“No.”
“No. And my father is an old, dying man. And we have not strong friends,
as strength goes. The changing time is yet so young, and the old time a
giant--”
“Wait a little while--”
“So I think.... We will be patient, wreathed and twined with
patience.... When will the all say to the all, ‘Freedom!’”
The summer passed, the autumn went, the white-clad winter drove by in
her sledge, the days grew longer, the sun more strong, the frogs were
heard in their marshes, the willows greened, the birds returned. In that
year matters in the world had moved so fast that it seemed that many
years must have been bound in the one sheaf.
On a day in May, Eberhard again approached the red and brown house among
the cherry trees. Within the gate he saw the snow petals drift down and
the bright butterflies and the humming bees. Upon the doorstep sat
Thekla. “He is asleep. The ship is almost out of harbour.”
Eberhard sat beside her. “I could not sleep, and I rose while it was
still grey. I had pencils and my drawing-block, and I fell to a drawing
of old Babylon for the Prophets series.... Thekla, do you think that we
ever lived in old Babylon?”
“Yes, we lived there....”
“So I must think.... I drew with the skill I have to-day, but I drew
your face in a temple room.”
“Where have we not lived? We are all life.”
They sat still in the sunshine. The bees hummed, the butterflies
glanced, the breeze shook down the cherry snow. A bird arose on glancing
wings and flew into the blue. Thekla spoke. “Elsa--”
“Here am I to help you,” said Eberhard.
On such and such a day walked Thekla from Hauptberg. The day was passing
sweet, the land at mental war, but not at that gross war which made a
country road no better for a woman than any hungry jungle. There was no
reason why one who was strong and who toiled for a living should not
fare afoot from town to outlying hamlet or country house. So Thekla went
on, through the bright spring air, and with a hopeful spring in her
heart. “Elsa! Elsa! Elsa!” said her heart. Back in the red and brown
house lay the old man her father, watched over by the orphan girl and by
Gretchen Knapp. He lay peacefully, his ship a noble ship, waiting in a
great calm for the loosening that should send him forth upon the ocean.
She was at peace with and about him.... The time-spirit was busied with
a great rearrangement of particles. She felt that; she believed that the
new arranging held great promise; she loved the world and was happy with
a vision of an inner new garment, beautiful, desirable as this outer
loveliness of spring garments! She had the great happiness of believing
that spring was coming to the whole world. “Elsa!” beat her heart. And,
“Eberhard--Eberhard--Eberhard!” beat her heart. And
“Women--women--women!” beat her heart. And, “All the world--all the
world!” beat her heart.
A few miles out of Hauptberg, Eberhard, driving a strong grey farmhorse
in a farmcart, turned from a wood track into the highway. No one was
near, only distant folk and beasts might be seen upon the road. Thekla
climbed to his side, and the steady grey horse drew them on. To those
who knew them not they might seem a prospering peasant and his wife.
They drove many miles through the soft, bloomy weather. Here was their
present goal--a farmhouse known to Thekla, the place where she stayed
when at long, long intervals she came to see Elsa in the Convent of the
Vale. From the hill behind the house might be seen the roofs of Elsa’s
prison.... To Elsa it had not always been prison; to many therein it did
not now seem prison; to very many in the near past and the far past it
had stood as true refuge and haven of safety; to a few its meaning had
been high opportunity, fair self-fulfilment. It had had part, and no
ignoble part, in the movement of all things. But now to the inner need
of many an one, it was grown a manacle for the spirit’s wrists, a
bandage for the eyes, an unwholesome draught for the lips, a shell and
casing straight and deadening. It stifled the life that once it had
served.
The farmhouse where now the two alighted from the cart was one in which
Thekla and Elsa had played as children. The grey-headed man who met them
in the yard was a kinsman of their mother’s, the middle-aged man who
would not return till evening from the fields, the middle-aged woman who
stood in the door, were of those who presently would be called
“Lutheran.” Thekla was at home here; they took Eberhard simply, as her
helper in a piece of business of which they had knowledge. The
grey-headed man showed him where to put the grey horse and the cart; he
came presently into a bare, clean room where the women were placing upon
a deal table bread and meat and ale. He and Thekla sat down and ate and
drank, and in at the open window came all the songs and scents of
spring.
The shadows grew long, the sun went down, a full moon rose behind the
hills. The frog choir was in the meadows, a nightbird cried from the
wood. Thekla and Eberhard were walking through a forest, following a
stream that flowed by convent lands. Huge boughs stretched above their
heads, the moon came through the forest windows, the clear stream sang.
Then they came to a bare hill and mounted it. On the top they paused,
and, looking down, saw the Convent of the Vale.
It became deep night.... With hearts that trembled, that stood still,
that drew courage and met the emergency, two nuns of the Vale stole from
cells, through corridors, by many doors, by blank walls. They reached a
door seldom used, in a part of the vast building from which the life of
the place had withdrawn. There were bars across; these they withdrew
softly, softly. Here was the heavy lock. Elsa had the key, obtained
after long, patient planning, obtained with a still daring. She kneeled,
inserted the key,--it turned with groaning sound. The two waited, so
breathless and unmoving that they seemed figures of wax resting there
against wall and door. But the convent slept, or, waking, did not hear.
Elsa drew open the door. They went out, they closed it behind them; they
made way through the convent garden.
Here was the wall, high, but with huge ivy twists covering it to the
top. They found the stoutest of these;--helping each the other, they
mounted, they crept across the broad coping, where the ivy was not let
to come. They looked over, down into darkness, they made courage their
servant, they gripped the edge with both hands, they lowered themselves,
they dropped upon the earth beneath. Mother Earth was kind, they took no
hurt.... There were yet to pass neighbouring low houses of peasants,
bound to the soil and convent service. But the night was at its depth
and all life seemed charmed to keep its place.
A clear stream slipped through the vale. Upon one side lay the convent
land, upon the other the world beyond its dominion. A narrow bridge gave
crossing. Elsa and her fellow crossed the stream and were immediately
under huge trees. Thekla spoke from where she stood beneath an oak.
“Elsa....”
Thekla, Eberhard, Elsa and Clara hastened through the night. The old
wood stood still about them, they had glimpses of stars like hanging
fruit, balm drew its mantle around. They went fast and went far, and ere
the cock crew were at that farmhouse. Here was food prepared, and
peasant dresses for Elsa and Clara. In a room in which the dawn was
coming, Elsa, this dress upon her, took up the nun’s garb, fallen at her
feet. She looked at Thekla over it, Thekla looked at her. They were both
moved, they had a great tenderness in their faces. “Now we will put it
in the fire,” said Elsa. “It has meant some terrible things, and it has
meant some lovely things, and it will go away in lovely flame, and when
I remember the terrible I will also remember the lovely, as is just.”
“Yes,” said Thekla. “Here is the fire kindled.”
Elsa and Clara came out of the house, like peasant women. Behind them
Margaret, Hans’s wife, made haste to make the house as though none but
the usual dwellers had stepped therein, or yesterday or to-day. Without,
in the pink dawn light, waited the horse and cart and Eberhard in the
carter’s seat. And here were Hans and old Fritz and Michael, son of
Fritz, with their own cart and cart-horse ready to overtread and confuse
within and without the farmyard the marks of the Hauptberg travellers.
Thekla, Elsa, and Clara climbed into the cart. Thekla sat beside
Eberhard, Elsa and Clara sat upon straw, among baskets, wide peasant
hats shading their faces. The light was not yet clear; they were forth
upon the highroad, going toward Hauptberg before the growing travel took
note of them. And then the travel saw only prosperous peasant-folk going
to town to market. And so at last they came to Hauptberg.
Gabriel lay as he had lain when Thekla and Eberhard left him. Gretel the
orphan and Gretchen Knapp had cared for him well. The cherry blossoms
nodded over the little red and brown house, the bees hummed around it.
Elsa stood as in a trance, tasting home.... They made Clara welcome,
would hold her until her kin that were of the following of Luther could
send for her from their own town.
Presently Hauptberg knew that two nuns had left the Convent of the Vale,
and that Gabriel Mayr’s daughter Elsa was within the town walls, in the
red and brown house with the old dying scholar, with her sister Thekla.
Great talk arose in which opinion stood divided. Some cried huge scandal
and sacrilege, some held their breath, some cried, Well done! All
Germany now was divided into two parties, those two divided into others.
The old party, the old Church thundered and threatened, but the new
party gathered and came on with the shout of the springtime flood. The
Prince in whose rule stood the town of Hauptberg was friendly to the
new. If at first it was doubtful, it was soon seen that, so long as the
new withstood and grew upon the old, Elsa who had been nun was safe in
Hauptberg, and safe those who had helped her escape.
Martin Luther heard of that happening, and preaching in Wittenberg,
cried, “See how, God with them, those two came forth! Be of their
company, monk and nun, throughout the land! O ye self-immured, do ye not
see that ye cannot wall in God? Man cannot wall God in, and woman cannot
wall God in! God--yea, in your bodies!--will walk free!”
Others were breaking monastery and convent--this very year came from the
Convent at Eisenach Catherine von Bora and her five sister nuns....
In Hauptberg, in the red and brown house behind the cherry trees, Thekla
and Elsa kneeled beside their dying father. Gabriel Mayr was conscious,
he had a peaceful and clear going forth. He put his hands upon his
daughters’ hands, the hands of the three held together. “Thekla and
Elsa.... Wider and deeper being for us all--” His hands unclosed, life
went out of his body. Thekla and Elsa rose and looked upon the shell
beside the ocean.
Summer passed--autumn came, rich and ripe with wheat sheaves and hanging
grapes. Thekla and Elsa lived on in the red and brown house and earned
for themselves. Then Elsa went to the nearest great city to visit Clara
who lived there. Thekla and the young orphan girl kept the house.
Eberhard painted a great picture for a guild hall in a town fifty miles
away.
Came winter with its grey cloak and its white cloak and on keen, clear
nights the tremendous stars. Came again Eberhard. “Thekla, now must we
live and work together----”
“Live and work together.”
They gathered neighbours and friends, and before these took each the
other’s hands. “We two love, and we will to live and work together----”
So Eberhard came to the red and brown house....
And all this while the mind of the age moved in revolt, and, like the
needle of the compass, customs and institutions trembled toward
following the mind. It was the new time, and the new time was yet fluid,
and might go between these banks or between those. The flood might
contract--the flood might expand. Many fields would be watered, or more
or less. Those who cared for certain fields looked anxiously that they
be helped. Hearts beat high and hearts sank--there were dreams--there
were pangs of hope and of disappointment. Some could say, “The water
comes to my fields, the water turns my mill wheel!” and some, “It goes
aside, my fields are left unhelped, my wheel stands still!” and some,
“For me a little rill, a broken light, a wheel that is turned a little
way!”
At Christmas-tide came again to the Golden Eagle Albrecht and Ulrich,
Conrad Devilson and Walther von Langen, older all by four years than in
that December when they had brought news of the burning of the Pope’s
bull. As of yore the Golden Eagle creaked and swung. Within the clean
inn room Hans Knapp fed the fire, and the flame leaped up the chimney.
Frau Knapp had lost no skill of cookery, and Gretchen Knapp, a little
larger, a little rosier, moved about the room and set the pasty on the
table and drew the ale. Only two of the incoming four might justly now
be named wandering students. One had settled into burgherdom and was in
Hauptberg on merchant business. One taught in an university and now had
a holiday. The four had met much by accident. But fine and pleasant it
was to be together again, at this Golden Eagle! They recalled the last
time they had been so together in this town. “We went to Gabriel Mayr’s.
Eberhard Gerson was with us.”--“Now it is Eberhard’s small red and brown
house--Eberhard’s cherry trees and currant bushes!”--“Let us go see
Eberhard and Thekla!”
They went somewhat merrily up the narrow street, but they did not sing
as they had done. That was because they were older, and two were grown
respectable. Moreover, some sweetness and wild flavour--the taste of the
first flood--undeniably was gone out of the times.
Here was the red and brown house between the woodcarver’s and the
goldsmith’s. They struck against the door. It opened and Thekla stood
before them. “Welcome, and enter, wandering students!”
In the room, ruddy with firelight, Elsa sat and span, open beside her a
book of old poetry. Gretel, the young orphan girl, knitted and played
with the cat upon the hearth. Eberhard was gone to look at a book at the
University. He would presently be home. Thekla showed the work he was
doing--the series of drawings, The Road to the City of God. The
wandering students admired, commented, admired again. “The verse in
each--the verse that is shown?”
“I write the verse. He makes the picture.”
“They fit,” said Conrad Devilson, “like two halves of an apple!”
Eberhard opened the door and came in. There was welcoming--good talk of
work and of old times and wanderings. Gathered around the fire, they
talked of private and public matters. It was a time when the public
business is clearly seen to be each soul’s business. So they talked of
the general storm and stress. Eberhard had news. Martin Luther was
coming to Hauptberg and on three successive days would deliver three
discourses. And all would go....
Outside the house the wind rattled the boughs, the wind sang in the
chimney. Thekla sat in her red gown, in the old chair of Gabriel Mayr.
She sat in the middle of the half ring, in front of the bright, leaping
fire.
“Fire is a chariot in which rides the past!” said Thekla. “Who first
kindled fire and laid it on a hearth?”
“Some hunter,” said Conrad Devilson. “He would find a cave and bring
lightning from a stricken tree, and build himself a hearth, and lay fire
and cook his game and be at home! The early man.”
“Ah, much we owe the early man!” said Walther von Langen.
“He is at the base,” said Albrecht.
The wind whistled, the bare cherry boughs tapped upon the wall. Thekla
left the great chair and the fire and going to the smaller room brought
back a dish of red apples and a jug of ale.
A week and Martin Luther came to Hauptberg. All that great moiety of the
town that would presently be named “Protestant” flocked and crowded to
hear him, who was the most famous man in Germany. On a windy, wintry
day, to a great throng, preached Martin Luther. Two hours he preached
and touched on many things. Great was his power in preaching, great his
power to make and guide opinion, wide the magnetic field in which he
moved.
That was the first day. Came the second, and came again the flocking and
the thronging. He preached the revolt of thought, and he drew Martin
Luther’s lines around that revolt, and within the line was blessing and
without the line was cursing. One thought of revolt infected another
thought with revolt, one question led to other questions.... Martin
Luther knew not how to help that, but he could preach against the
thought with which he did not travel, the question which did not come to
him to be asked.... He could preach with a great, plain heat and power.
He could knock down and render without seeming life a thought or
question. If, after a time, it revived, got again to its feet, that
doubtless was a trick learned of Satan....
He travelled with religious revolt, but by no means with political,
economic, and social revolt--save only as all society, through religious
revolt, somewhat changed its hue. He allowed that; where society had
been dark of hue it was to become light and bright of hue. He thought
that his definition of religion was the whole definition. He carried a
great lantern and it sent a bright ray into many a dark corner. But it
was a great lantern and not a sun.
He preached against the seething discontent among the peasants and the
artisans. He preached against economic revolt. It was a wide subject,
and there were other revolts also that to-day he lacked time thoroughly
to destroy. Between two and three hours he preached. He left economic
and class revolt breathless, hurt with many a wound, seemingly done to
death. And there was yet to-morrow in which to finish these and other
serpents who raised their heads from the dust in the tumult of the
times....
On the morrow he preached the third time. Hauptberg that would hear
Luther thronged together under a grey sky, came through fast-falling
snowflakes. They fell so thick, they fell so fast, they were so large
and white that the world seemed moving in a veil. Martin Luther preached
again upon the revolts outside the line that he drew, and he shook
anathemas upon them, and he laid hands upon the Bible before him and he
interpreted its words according to his own inner and strong feeling.
“Slaves, obey your masters!” he preached. “Render unto Cæsar that which
is Cæsar’s and unto God that which is God’s!” he preached. “The poor ye
have always with you!” he preached. He preached of men and women. “Are
you made for abstinence? No! You are made, as God says, to increase and
multiply! But in marriage, not without. Therefore, let a man early find
work and take to wedlock in God’s name! A boy at the latest at twenty, a
girl at fifteen or eighteen.... Let God take care how they and their
children are to be supported. God creates children and will certainly
support them.... If a woman becomes weary and at last dead from
bearing, that mattereth not! Let her only die from bearing, she is there
to do it!”
He preached the subjection of woman. “The woman’s will, as saith God,
shall be subject to the man and he shall be master; which is to say, the
woman shall not live according to her free will, as it would have been
had Eve not sinned, for then she had ruled equally with Adam, the man,
as his colleague! Now, however, that she has sinned and seduced the man,
she has lost the governance, and must neither begin nor complete
anything without the man! Where he is there must she be, and bend before
him as before her master, whom she shall fear, and to whom she shall be
subject and obedient!”
He swung his great lantern, and now there was light, and now its light
was darkened. But he had huge influence to determine minds that were not
self-determined. The sermon was over.... Dr. Martin Luther went away
with University men; the crowd broke, hung lingering, discoursing upon
the discourse, most unevenly divided into yeas and nays.... Then home it
went, in units, twos, and groups, through the falling snow.
Elsa was again with Clara, in her home in the next city. Thekla and
Eberhard came between the bare fruit trees to their door, opened it, and
entering heard the orphan girl singing at her work. They put away cap
and mantle, hood and mantle; they came to the fire, and, raking up the
embers, laid on fresh wood, and brought into the room the brightness of
leaping flame. The air grew warm. For all the falling snow without,
flowers might have bloomed in here and the greenwood waved. Eberhard’s
drawing-table stood by the window. The two, moving there, gazed out
upon the snow, then, turning, looked each upon the other. They laughed.
Eberhard bent over the board. “Picture after picture upon the Road to
the City of God!”
“Ten thousand, thousand, pictures!”
Bending, they looked at the drawing together, read together the verses
lying beside it. “Good is the poem!” said Eberhard.
“And good is the picture!”
“What was it Conrad Devilson said the other day?”
“‘They fit like two halves of an apple.’... To talk in terms of
halves--how strange that must seem in a world where one says, ‘Lo, an
apple!’”
They laughed again, but then they sighed, looking from the window upon
Hauptberg and the falling snow.