At first Dietel, the old waiter, whose bullet-shaped head was covered
with thick gray hair, also failed to notice them. Without heeding their
entrance, he continued,--aided by two assistants who were scarcely
beyond boyhood,--to set the large and small pine tables which he had
placed wherever he could find room.
The patched tablecloths which he spread over the tops were coarse and
much worn; the dishes carried after him by the two assistants, whose
knees bent under the burden, were made of tin, and marred by many a
dent. He swung his stout body to and fro with jerks like a grasshopper,
and in doing so his shirt rose above his belt, but the white napkin
under his arm did not move a finger's width. In small things, as well as
great ones, Dietel was very methodical. So he continued his occupation
undisturbed till an inexperienced merchant's clerk from Ulm, who wanted
to ride farther speedily, accosted him and asked for some special dish.
Dietel drew his belt farther down and promptly snubbed the young man
with the angry retort; "Everybody must wait for his meal. We make no
exceptions here."
Interrupted in his work, he also saw the newcomers, and then cast a
peevish glance at one corner of the room, where stood a table covered
with fine linen and set with silver dishes, among them a platter on
which early pears and juicy plums were spread invitingly. The landlady
of The Pike had arranged them daintily upon fresh vine leaves an hour
before with her own plump but nimble hands. Of course they were intended
for the gentlemen from Nuremberg and their guests. Dietel, too, now knew
them, and saw that the party numbered a person no less distinguished
than the far-famed and highly learned Doctor and Imperial Councillor,
Conrad Peutinger. They were riding to Cologne together under the same
escort. The citizens of Nuremberg were distinguished men, as well as
their guest, but Dietel had served distinguished personages by the dozen
at The Blue Pike for many years--among them even crowned heads--and they
had wanted for nothing. His skill, however, was not sufficient for these
city demigods; for the landlord of The Pike intended to look after their
table himself. Tomfoolery! There was more than enough for him to do that
day over yonder in the room occupied by the lansquenets and the city
soldiers, where he usually directed affairs in person. It roused
Dietel's ire. The cooking of The Blue Pike, which the landlady
superintended, could vie with any in the Frank country, on the Rhine,
or in Swabia, yet, forsooth, it wasn't good enough for the Nuremberg
guests. The Council cook, a fat, pompous fellow, accompanied them, and
had already begun to bustle about the hearth beside the hostess. They
really would have required no service at all, for they brought their own
attendants. It certainly was not Dietel's usual custom to wish any one
evil, but if Gotz Berlichinger, who had recently attacked a party of
Leipsic merchants at Forchheim, or Hans von Geisslingen had fallen upon
them and subdued their arrogance, it would not have spoiled Dietel's
appetite.
At last they moved forward. The others might treat them as they chose;
he, at least, would neither say anything to them nor bow before them as
the ears did before Joseph in Holy Writ. Nevertheless, he looked out
of the corner of his eye at them as he took from the basket of the
round-checked kitchen maid, who had now found her way to him, one fresh
brown roll after another, and placed them beside plate after plate.
How well risen and how crusty they were! They fairly cracked under the
pressure of the thumb, yet wheat rolls had been baked specially for the
Nuremberg party. Was God's good gift too poor for the Honourables with
the gold chains?
Now, even fragile little Dr. Eberbach, and the students and Bacchantes
who had stood around him like disciples, intently listening to his
words, bowed respectfully. The ungodly, insolent fellows who surrounded
the Dominican Jacobus, the vender of indulgences, had turned from him,
while he exhorted them, as if he were an importunate beggar. What did
the merchants, artisans, and musicians know about the godless Greek
and Latin writings which brought the names of Pirckheimer and Peutinger
before the people, yet how reverently many of these folk now bowed
before them. Only the soldiers with swords at their sides held their
heads erect. They proved that they were right in calling themselves
"pious lansquenets." The broad-shouldered knight, with the plumed hat
and suit of mail, who walked beside them, was Sir Hans von Obernitz, the
Schultheiss of Nuremberg. He was said to be a descendant of the ancient
Brandenstein race, and yet--was the world topsy-turvy?--he, too,
was listening to every word uttered by Wilibald Pirckheimer and
Dr. Peutinger as if it were a revelation. The gray-haired leech and
antiquary, Hartmann Schedel, whom Herr Wilibald,--spite of the gout
which sometimes forced a slight grimace to distort his smooth-shaven,
clever, almost over-plump face,--led by the arm like a careful son,
resembled, with his long, silver locks, a patriarch or an apostle.
The young envoy of the Council, Herr Lienhard Groland, lingered behind
the others and seemed to be taking a survey of the room.
What bright, keen eyes he had; how delicately cut was the oval face with
the strong, very slightly hooked nose; how thick were the waving brown
locks that fell upon the slender neck; how well the pointed beard suited
his chin; with what austere majesty his head rose above the broad,
plaited, snow-white ruff, which he must have just donned!
Now his eyes rested upon the vagrants, and Dietel perceived something
which threw him completely off his balance; for the first time he
changed the position of his napkin, jerking it from its place under
his left arm to tuck it beneath the right one. He had known Kuni a long
time. In her prosperous days, when she was the ornament of Loni's band
and had attracted men as a ripe pear draws wasps, she had often been
at the tavern, and both he and the landlord of The Pike had greeted her
cordially, for whoever sought her favour was obliged to order the best
and dearest of everything, not only for her and himself, but for a whole
tableful of hungry guests. When she had met him just now he would never
have recognised her had she not been in Gundel's company. True, the
sight of her in this plight was not unexpected, yet it pierced him to
the heart, for Kuni had been a remarkable girl, and yet was now in
far greater penury than many of much less worth whom he had watched
stumbling along the downward path before her. When he saw Lienhard
Groland's glance rest upon her, he noticed also how strangely her
emaciated face changed colour. Though it had just been as white as the
napkin under his arm, it now flushed as red as the balsam blossoms in
the window, and then paled again. She had formerly gazed around her
boldly enough, but now she lowered her eyes to the floor as modestly as
any demure maiden on her way to church.
And what did this mean?
The honourable member of the Nuremberg Council must be well acquainted
with the girl, for his eyes had scarcely met hers ere a strange smile
flitted over his grave, manly face.
Now--was it in jest or earnest?--he even shook his finger at her. He
stopped in front of her a moment, too, and Dietel heard him exclaim:
"So here you are! On the highway again, in spite of everything?"
The distance which separated them and the loud talking of the guests
prevented the waiter's hearing her reply, "The captive bird can not
endure the cage long, Herr Lienhard," far less the words, added in a
lower tone:
"Yet flight has been over since my fall at Augsburg. My foot lies buried
there with many other things which will never return. I can only move on
wheels behind the person who takes me." Then she paused and ventured
to look him full in the face. Her eyes met his beaming with a radiant
light, but directly after they were dimmed by a mist of tears. Yet she
forced them back, though the deep suffering from which they sprung was
touchingly apparent in the tone of her voice, as she continued:
"I have often wished, Herr Lienhard, that the cart was my coffin and the
tavern the graveyard."
Dietel noticed the fit of coughing which followed this speech, and the
hasty movement with which the Nuremberg patrician thrust his hand into
his purse and tossed Kuni three coins. They did not shine with the
dull white lustre of silver, but with the yellow glitter of gold.
The waiter's eyes were sharp and he had his own ideas about this
unprecedented liberality.
The travelling companions of the aristocratic burgomaster and
ambassadors of the proud city of Nuremberg had also noticed this
incident.
After they had taken their seats at the handsomely ornamented table,
Wilibald Pirckheimer bent toward the ear of his young friend and
companion in office, whispering:
"The lovely wife at home whom you toiled so hard to win, might, I know,
rest quietly, secure in the possession of all the charms of foam-born
Aphrodite, yet I warn you. Whoever is as sure of himself as you
cares little for the opinion of others. And yet we stand high, friend
Lienhard, and therefore are seen by all; but the old Argus who watches
for his neighbour's faults has a hundred sharp eyes, while among the
gods three are blind--Justice, Happiness, and Love. Besides, you flung
gold to yonder worthless rabble. I would rather have given it to the
travelling musicians. They, like us humanists, are allied to the Muses
and, moreover, are harmless, happy folk."
Lienhard Groland listened till his older friend had finished. Then,
after thanking him for his well-meant counsel, he answered, turning to
the others also:
"In better days rope-dancing was the profession of yonder poor, coughing
creature. Now, after a severe accident, she is dragging herself through
life on one foot. I once knew her, for I succeeded in saving her from
terrible disgrace."
"And," replied Wilibald Pirckheimer, "we would rather show kindness a
second and a third time to any one on whom we have be stowed a favour
than to render it once to a person from whom we have received one. This
is my own experience. But the wise man must guard against nothing more
carefully than to exceed moderation in his charity. How easily, when
Caius sees Cnejus lavish gold where silver or copper would serve, he
thinks of Martial's apt words: 'Who gives great gifts, expects great
gifts again.'--[Martial, Epigram 5, 59, 3.]--Do not misunderstand me.
What could yonder poor thing bestow that would please even a groom? But
the eyes of suspicion scan even the past. I have often seen you open
your purse, friend Lienhard, and this is right. Whoever hath ought to
give, and my dead mother used to say that: 'No one ever became a beggar
by giving at the proper time.'"
"And life is gladdened by what one gives to another," remarked Conrad
Peutinger, the learned Augsburg city clerk, who valued his Padua title
of doctor more than that of an imperial councillor. "It applies to all
departments. Don't allow yourself to regret your generosity, friend
Lienhard. 'Nothing becomes man better than the pleasure of giving,'
says Terentius.--[Terenz. Ad. 360]--Who is more liberal than the destiny
which adorns the apple tree that is to bear a hundred fruits, with ten
thousand blossoms to please our eyes ere it satisfies our appetite?"
"To you, if to any one, it gives daily proof of liberality in both
learning and the affairs of life," Herr Wilibald assented.
"If you will substitute 'God, our Lord,' for 'destiny,' I agree with
you," observed the Abbot of St. AEgidius in Nuremberg.
The portly old prelate nodded cordially to Dr. Peutinger as he spoke.
The warm, human love with which he devoted himself to the care of souls
in his great parish consumed the lion's share of his time and strength.
He spent only his leisure hours in the study of the ancient writers,
in whom he found pleasure, and rejoiced in the work of the humanists
without sharing their opinions.
"Yes, my dear Doctor," he continued in his deep voice, in a tone of the
most earnest conviction, "if envy were ever pardonable, he who presumed
to feel it toward you might most speedily hope to find forgiveness.
There is no physical or mental gift with which the Lord has not blessed
you, and to fill the measure to overflowing, he permitted you to win a
beautiful and virtuous wife of noble lineage."
"And allowed glorious daughters to grow up in your famous home," cried
little Dr. Eberbach, waving his wineglass enthusiastically. "Who has not
heard of Juliane Peutinger, the youngest of humanists, but no longer one
of the least eminent, who, when a child only four years old, addressed
the Emperor Maximilian in excellent Latin. But when, as in the
child Juliane, the wings of the intellect move so powerfully and so
prematurely, who would not think of the words of the superb Ovid: 'The
human mind gains victories more surely than lances and arrows.'"
But, ere he had finished the verse which, like many another Latin one,
he mingled with his German words, he noticed Lienhard Groland eagerly
motioning to him to stop. The latter knew only too well what had not
yet reached the ears of Eberbach in Vienna. The marvellous child, whose
precocious learning he had just extolled as a noble gift of Providence
to the father, was no longer among the living. Her bright eyes had
closed ere she reached maidenhood.
Dr. Eberbach, in painful embarrassment, tried to apologize for his
heedlessness, but the Augsburg city clerk, with a friendly gesture,
endeavoured to soothe his young fellow-scholar.
"It brought the true nature of happiness very vividly before all our
eyes," he remarked with a faint sigh. "In itself it is not lasting. A
second piece of good fortune is needed to maintain the first. Mine was
indeed great and beautiful enough. But we will let the dead rest.
What more have you heard concerning the first books of the Annales of
Tacitus, said to have been discovered in the Corvey monastery? If the
report should be verified----"
Here Eberbach, delighted to find an opportunity to afford the honoured
man whom he had unwittingly grieved a little pleasure, eagerly
interrupted. Hurriedly thrusting his hand into the breast of his black
doublet, he drew forth several small sheets on which he had succeeded in
copying the beginning of the precious new manuscript, and handed them
to Peutinger, who, with ardent zeal, instantly became absorbed in the
almost illegible characters of his young comrade in learning. Wilibald
Pirckheimer and Lienhard Groland also frequently forgot the fresh salmon
and young partridges, which were served in succession, to share this
brilliant novelty. The Abbot of St. AEgidius, too, showed his pleasure
in the fortunate discovery, and did not grow quieter until the
conversation turned upon the polemical writing which Reuchlin had just
finished. It had recently appeared in Frankfort under the title: The
Eye Mirror, and assailed with crushing severity those who blamed him for
opposing the proposal to destroy the books of the Jews.
"What in the world do we care about the writings of the Hebrews?" the
deep bass voice of Hans von Obernitz here interrupted the conversation.
"A new Latin manuscript--that I value! But has this noble fragment of
Tacitus created half as much stir as this miserable dispute?"
"There is more at stake," said Lienhard Groland positively. "The Jewish
writings merely serve as a pretext for the Cologne inquisitors to attack
the great Reuchlin. He, the most profound and keenest student of the
noble Greek tongue, who also forced the venerable language in which the
Old Testament speaks to discourse to us Germans--"
"The Hebrew!" cried Hans von Obernitz impatiently, passing his napkin
over his thick moustache; "what do we want of it? How can a sagacious
man plunge into such annoyances on its account?"
"Because the excess of liberty which you gentlemen grant to the human
intellect blinds him," observed the abbot. "His learning would throw the
doors wide open to heresy. The Scriptures are true. On them Tungern and
Kollin, whom you mention, rely. In the original Hebrew text they will be
given up to every one who wishes to seek an interpretation----"
"Then a new bridge will be built for truth," declared the little
Thuringian with flashing eyes.
"The Cologne theologians hold a different opinion," replied the abbot.
"Because the Grand Inquisitor and his followers--Tungern, Kollin, and
whatever the rest may be called--are concerned about some thing very
different from the noblest daughter of Heaven," said Lienhard Groland,
and the other gentlemen assented. "You yourself, my lord abbot, admitted
to me on the ride here that it angered you, too, to see the Cologne
Dominicans pursue the noble scholar 'with such fierce hatred and bitter
stings.'"--[Virgil, Aeneid, xi. 837.]
"Because conflict between Christians always gives me pain," replied the
abbot.
But here Dr. Eberbach impetuously broke in upon the conversation:
"For the sake of a fair woman Ilion suffered unspeakable tortures.
But to us a single song of Homer is worth more than all these Hebrew
writings. And yet a Trojan war of the intellect has been kindled
concerning them. Here freedom of investigation, yonder with Hoogstraten
and Tungern, fettering of the mind. Among us, the ardent yearning to
hold aloft the new light which the revival of learning is kindling,
yonder superior force is struggling to extinguish it. Here the rule of
the thinking mind, in whose scales reason and counter-argument decide
the matter; among the Cologne people it is the Grand Inquisitor's
jailers, chains, dungeons, and the stake."
"They will not go so far," replied the abbot soothingly. "True, both the
front and the back stairs are open to the Dominicans in Rome."
"Yet where should humanism find more zealous friends than in that very
place, among the heads of the Church?" asked Dr. Peutinger. "From the
Tiber, I hope----"
Here he paused, for the new guest who had just entered the room
attracted his attention also. The landlord of The Blue Pike respectfully
preceded him and ushered him directly to the Nuremberg party, while he
requested the Dominican monks who accompanied him to wait.
The late arrival was Prof. Arnold von Tungern, dean of the theological
faculty at the University of Cologne. This gentleman had just
been mentioned with the greatest aversion at the table he was now
approaching, and his arrogant manner did little to lessen it.
Nevertheless, his position compelled the Nuremberg dignitaries to invite
him to share their meal, which was now drawing to a close. The Cologne
theologian accepted the courtesy with a patronizing gesture, as if it
were a matter of course. Nay, after he had taken his seat, he ordered
the landlord, as if he were the master, to see that this and that thing
in the kitchen was not forgotten.
Unwelcome as his presence doubtless was to his table companions, as
sympathizers with Reuchlin and other innovators, well as he doubtless
remembered their scornful attacks upon his Latin--he was a man to
maintain his place. So, with boastful self-conceit, allowing no one else
an opportunity to speak, he at once began to complain of the fatigues
of the journey and to mention, with tiresome detail, the eminent persons
whom he had met and who had treated him like a valued friend. The vein
on the little doctor's high forehead swelled with wrath as he listened
to this boastful chatter, which did not cease until the first dish was
served. To brave him, Eberbach turned the conversation to humanism, its
redeeming power over minds, and its despicable foes. His scornful jests
buzzed around his enemy like a swarm of gnats; but Arnold von Tungern
pretended not to hear them. Only now and then a tremor of the mouth,
as he slowly chewed his food, or a slight raising of the eye-brows,
betrayed that one shaft or another had not wholly missed its mark.
The older gentlemen had sometimes interrupted the Thuringian, to try to
change the conversation, but always in vain, and the guest from Cologne
vouchsafed them only curt, dry answers.
Not until a pause occurred between two courses did von Tungern alter
his manner. Then, like an inquisitor who has succeeded in convicting the
person accused, he leaned back in his chair with a satisfied, long-drawn
"So-o," wiped his moist chin, and began:
"You have showed me your state of mind plainly enough, my young Herr
Doctor. Your name is Eberbach, if I am not mistaken. We will remember it
at a fitting opportunity. But, pugnaciously as your loud voice summons
to the strife, it will never destroy the sacred and venerable things
which are worthy to endure. Thanks to the foundation of rock which
supports them, and the watchfulness of their defenders, they will stand
firmer than the walls of Jericho, whose fate you doubtless wish to
bestow upon them. But you, my valued friends"--here he turned to the
envoys--"who stand at the head of communities whose greatness is founded
upon their ancient order and system, beware of opening your ears and
your gates to the siren song and fierce outcries of the innovators and
agitators."
"Thanks for the counsel," replied Wilibald Pirckheimer, with repellent
coldness; but Arnold von Tungern pretended to consider the humanist's
reply an assent, and, nodding approvingly, continued:
"How could you help exclaiming, with us and the pagan Ovid, 'We praise
the ancients!' And this is merely saying that what time has tested and
made venerable is the best."--[Ovid. Fast., 1, 225.]
Here Doctor Peutinger tried to interrupt him, but the other cut him
short with an arrogant wave of the hand, and in an instructive tone
began again:
"The honourable Council of Nuremberg--so I am informed--set a
praiseworthy example several years ago. There was a youthful member of
one of your patrician families--an Ebner, I believe, or a Stromer or
Tucher. He had imbibed in Padua mistaken ideas which, unhappily, are
held in high esteem by many from whom we should expect more discernment.
So it chanced that when he returned home he ventured to contract a
formal betrothal with an honourable maiden of noble lineage, against the
explicit desire of her distinguished parents. The rebellious youth was
therefore summoned before a court of justice, and, on account of his
reckless offence and wanton violation of custom and law, banished from
the city and sentenced to pay a fine----"
"A punishment which I endured calmly, Herr Professor," interrupted
Lienhard Groland, "for I myself was that 'rebellious youth.' Besides,
it was by no means the teachings of humanism which led me to an act that
you, learned sir, doubtless regard with sterner eyes than the Christian
charity which your clerical garb made me expect would permit."
These words fell, with the winning earnestness peculiar to him, from the
lips of the young man who, at a time when he cared for no other woman
than his new-made bride, had seen in the poor, endangered rope-dancer a
human being worthy of aid. Only his fiery dark eyes met the professor's
sternly enough.
The latter was still seeking a fitting reply, when the folding doors
of the room were thrown wide open, and a belated party of travellers
entered. They came opportunely, for they afforded a timely excuse to
withhold an answer without attracting notice; yet at the head of the new
guests of The Blue Pike was his Cologne colleague Conrad Kollin, who was
followed, as he himself had been, by a number of Dominican friars.
Tungern, of course, went to greet him, and this made it easy to part
from his table companions in a manner that aroused no comment; for while
Kollin was surrounded and respectfully welcomed by the Dominican friars
and many other travellers, the humanists left the house.