The April sun was shining brightly when the convent gates closed behind
Kuni. The lindens in the square were already putting forth young leaves,
the birds were singing, and her heart swelled more joyously than it had
done for many years.
True, the cough which had tormented her all winter attacked her in the
shady cloister, but she had learned to use her wooden foot, and with a
cane in one hand and her little bundle in the other she moved sturdily
on. After making her pilgrimage to Compostella, she intended to seek her
old employer, Loni. Perhaps he could give her a place as crier, or
if the cough prevented that, in collecting the money or training
the children. He was a kind-hearted man. If he were even tolerably
prosperous he would certainly let her travel with the band, and give
the girl who was injured in his service the bit of food she required.
Besides, in former days, when she scattered gold with lavish hands, he
had predicted what had now befallen her, and when he left Augsburg he
had asked the nuns to tell her that if she should ever be in want she
must remember Loni.
With the Emperor's five heller pounds, and the two florins which she
had received as a viaticum from the convent, she could journey a long
distance through the world; for there were plenty of carriers and
travellers with carts and wagons who would take her for a trifle, and
the vagabonds on the highway rarely left people like her in the lurch.
Probably, in former days, she had looked forward to the future with
greater strength and different expectations, yet, even as it was, in
spite of the cough and the painful pricking in her scars, she found
it pleasant so long as she was free and could follow whatever way she
chose. She knew the city, and limped through the streets and alleys
toward the tavern where the strolling players usually lodged.
On the way she met a gentleman in a suit of light armour, whom she
recognised in the distance as the Knight of Neckerfels, who had been
paying court to her before her fall. He was walking alone and looked her
directly in the face, but he did not have the slightest idea that he had
met madcap Kuni. It was only too evident that he supposed her to be
a total stranger. Yet it would have been impossible for any one to
recognise her.
Mirrors were not allowed in the convent, but a bright new tin plate had
showed her her emaciated face with the broad scar on the forehead, the
sunken eyes, and the whole narrow head, where the hair, which grew out
again very slowly, was just an ugly length. Now the sight of the bony
hand which grasped the cane brought a half-sorrowful, half-scornful,
smile to her lips. Her arm had been plump and round, but was now little
larger than a stick. Pretty Kuni, the ropedancer, no longer existed; she
must become accustomed to have the world regard her as a different
and far less important personage, whom Lienhard, too--and this was
fortunate--would not have deemed worthy of a glance.
And yet, if the inner self is the true one, there was little change in
her. Her soul was moved by the same feelings, only there was now a touch
of bitterness. One great advantage of her temperament, it is true, had
vanished with her physical beauty and strength--the capacity to hope for
happiness and joy. Perhaps it would never return; an oppressive feeling
of guilt, usually foreign to her careless nature, had oppressed her ever
since she had heard recently in the convent that the child on whom she
had called down death and destruction was lying hopelessly ill, and
would scarcely live till the joyous Whitsuntide.
This now came back to her mind. The jubilant sense of freedom deserted
her; she walked thoughtfully on until she reached the neighbourhood of
Jacob Fugger's house.
A long funeral procession was moving slowly toward her. Some very
exalted and aristocratic person must be taking the journey to the grave,
for it was headed by all the clergy in the city. Choristers, in the most
elaborate dress, swinging incense holders by delicate metal chains and
bearing lanterns on long poles, surrounded the lofty cross.
Every one of distinction in Augsburg, all the children who attended
school, and all the members of the various ecclesiastical orders and
guilds in the city marched before the bier. Kuni had never seen such a
funeral procession. Perhaps the one she witnessed in Milan, when a great
nobleman was buried, was longer, but in this every individual seemed to
feel genuine grief. Even the schoolboys who, on such solemn occasions,
usually play all sorts of secret pranks, walked as mournfully as if each
had lost some relative who was specially dear to him. Among the girls
there were few whose rosy cheeks were not constantly wet with tears.
From the first Kuni had believed that she knew who was being borne to
the grave. Now she heard several women whispering near her mention
the name of Juliane Peutinger. A pale-faced gold embroiderer, who had
recently bordered a gala dress with leaves and tendrils for the dead
girl's sister, described, sobbing, the severe suffering amid which this
fairest blossom of Augsburg girlhood had withered ere death finally
broke the slender stem.
Suddenly she stopped; a cry of mingled astonishment, lamentation, and
delight, sometimes rising, sometimes falling, ran through the crowd
which had gathered along the sides of the street.
The bier was in sight.
Twelve youths bore the framework, covered with a richly embroidered
blue cloth, on which the coffin rested. It was open, and the dead girl's
couch was so high that it seemed as though the sleeper was only resting
lightly on the white silk pillow. A wreath again encircled her head, but
this time blossoming myrtles blended with the laurel in the brown curls
that lay in thick, soft locks on the snowy pillows and the lace-trimmed
shroud.
Juliane's eyes were closed. Ah! how gladly Kuni would have kissed those
long-lashed lids to win even one look of forgiveness from her whom her
curse had perhaps snatched from the green spring world!
She remembered the sunny radiance with which this sleeper's eyes had
sparkled as they met Lienhard's. They were the pure mirror of the keen,
mobile intellect and the innocent, loving soul of this rare child. Now
death had closed them, and Juliane's end had been one of suffering.
The pale embroiderer had said so, and the sorrowful droop of the sweet
little mouth, which gave the wondrously beautiful, delicate, touching
little face so pathetic an expression, betrayed it. If the living girl
had measured her own young intellect with that of grown people, and her
face had worn the impress of precocious maturity, now it was that of a
charming child who had died in suffering.
Kuni also felt this, and asked herself how it had been possible for her
heart to cherish such fierce hatred against this little one, who had
numbered only eleven years.
But had this Juliane resembled other children?
No, no! No Emperor's daughter of her age would have been accompanied to
the churchyard with such pageantry, such deep, universal grief.
She had been the jewel of a great city. This was proclaimed by many
a Greek and Latin maxim on tablets borne by the friends of the great
humanist who, with joyful pride, called her his daughter.
Kuni could not read, but she heard at least one sentence translated by
a Benedictine monk to the nun at his side: "He whose death compels those
who knew him to weep, has the fairest end."--[Seneca, Hippol., 881.]
If this were true, Juliane's end was indeed fair; for she herself, whom
the child had met only to inflict pain, had her eyes dimmed by tears,
and wherever she turned she saw people weeping.
Most of those who lined the street could have had no close relations
with the dead girl. But yonder black-robed mourners who followed the
bier were her parents, her brothers and sisters, her nearest relatives,
the members of the Council, and the family servants. And she, the
wretched, reckless, sinful, crippled strolling player, for whom not a
soul on earth cared, whose death would not have drawn even a single tear
from any eye, to whom a speedy end could be only a benefit, was perhaps
the cause of the premature drying up of this pure fountain of joy, which
had refreshed so many hearts and animated them with the fairest hopes.
The tall lady, whose noble face and majestic figure were shrouded in
a thick veil, was Juliane's mother--and she had offered the sick
ropedancer a home in her wealthy household.
"If she had only known," thought Kuni, "the injury I was inflicting upon
her heart's treasure, she would rather have hunted me with dogs from her
threshold."
In spite of the veil which floated around the stately figure of the
grieving mother, she could see her bosom rise and fall with her sobs of
anguish. Kuni's compassionate heart made it impossible for her to watch
this sorrow longer, and, covering her face with her hands, she turned
her back upon the procession and, weeping aloud, limped away as fast as
her injured foot would let her. Meanwhile she sometimes said to herself
that she was the worst of all sinners because she had cursed the dead
girl and called down death and destruction upon her head, sometimes she
listened to the voice within, which told her that she had no reason
to grieve over Juliane's death, and completely embitter her already
wretched life by remorse and self-accusations; the dead girl was the
sole cause of her terrible fall. But the defiant rebellion against
the consciousness of guilt, which moved her so deeply, always ceased
abruptly as soon as it raised its head; for one fact was positive, if
the curse she had called down upon the innocent child, who had done her
no intentional wrong, had really caused Juliane's end, a whole life was
not long enough to atone for the sin which she had committed. Yet what
atonement was still in her power, after the death which she had summoned
had performed its terrible work of executioner?
"Nothing, nothing at all!" she said to herself angrily, resolving, as
she had so often done with better success, to forget what had happened,
cast the past into oblivion, and live in the present as before. But ere
she could attempt to fulfil this determination, the image of the tall,
grief-bowed figure of the woman who had called Juliane her dear child
rose before her mind, and it seemed as if a cold, heavy hand paralyzed
the wings of the light-hearted temperament which had formerly borne her
pleasantly over so many things. Then she told herself that, in order
not to go to perdition herself, she must vow, sacrifice, undertake
everything for the salvation of the dead girl and of her own heavily
burdened soul. For the first time she felt a longing to confide her
feelings to some one. If Lienhard had been within reach and disposed
to listen to her, he would have understood, and known what course to
advise.
True, the thought that he was not looking at her when she took the fatal
leap still haunted her. He could not have showed more offensively how
little he cared for her--but perhaps he was under the influence of
a spell; for she must be something to him. This was no vain
self-deception; had it not been so, would he have come in person to her
couch of pain, or cared for her so kindly after the accident?
In the convent she had reached the conviction that it would be degrading
to think longer of the man who, in return for the most ardent love,
offered nothing but alms in jingling coin; yet her poor heart would not
cease its yearning.
Meanwhile she never wearied of seeking motives that would place his
conduct in a more favourable light. Whatever he might have withheld from
her, he was nevertheless the best and noblest of men, and as she limped
aimlessly on, the conviction strengthened that the mere sight of him
would dispel the mists which, on this sunny spring day, seemed to veil
everything around and within her.
But he remained absent, and suddenly it seemed more disgraceful to seek
him than to stand in the stocks.
Yet the pilgrimage to Compostella, of which the confessor had spoken?
For the very reason that it had been described to her as unattainable,
it would perhaps be rated at a high value in heaven, and restore to her
while on earth the peace she had lost.
She pondered over this thought on her way to the tavern, where she found
a corner to sleep, and a carrier who, on the day after the morrow, would
take her to the sea for a heller pound. Other pilgrims had also engaged
passage at Antwerp for Corunna, the harbour of Compostella, and her
means were sufficient for the voyage. This assurance somewhat soothed
her while she remained among people of her own calling.
But she spent a sleepless night; for again and again the dead child's
image appeared vividly before her. Rising from the soft pillows in
the coffin, she shook her finger threateningly at her, or, weeping and
wailing, pointed down to the flames--doubtless those of purgatory--which
were blazing upward around her, and had already caught the hem of her
shroud.
Kuni arose soon after sunrise with a bewildered brain. Before setting
out on her pilgrimage she wished to attend mass, and--that the Holy
Virgin might be aware of her good intentions--repeat in church some of
the paternosters which her confessor had imposed.
She went out with the simple rosary that the abbess had given her upon
her wrist, but when she had left the tavern behind she saw a great
crowd in front of the new St. Ulrich's Church, and recognised among the
throngs of people who had flocked thither her companion in suffering
at the convent, the keeper of the bath-house, who had been cured of her
burns long before.
She had left her business to buy an indulgence for her own sins, and to
purchase for the soul of her husband--whose death-bed confession, it is
true, had been a long one--for the last time, but for many centuries
at once, redemption from the fires of purgatory. The Dominican friar
Tetzel, from Nuremberg, was here with his coffer, and carried written
promises which secured certain remission of punishment for all sins,
even those committed long ago, or to be committed in the future. The
woman had experienced the power of his papers herself. Tetzel had come
to Augsburg about a year after her husband's death, and, as she knew how
many sins he had committed, she put her hand into her purse to free him
from the flames. They must have burned very fiercely; for, while
awake at night and in her dreams, she had often heard him wailing and
complaining piteously. But after she bought the paper he became quiet
and, on the third night, she saw him with her own eyes enter the room,
and heard him promise her a great happiness in return for her faithful
remembrance.
The very next Sunday, Veit Haselnuss, the bath-house proprietor, a
well-to-do man who owned another house besides the one where he lived,
invited her to take a walk with him. She knew instantly that her late
husband was beginning to pay his debt of gratitude with this visitor
and, in fact, a short time after, the worthy man asked her to be his
wife, though she had three little children, and his oldest daughter
by his first wife was already able to look after the housekeeping. The
wedding took place on Whitsunday, and she owed this great happiness
entirely to the dispensation which had released the dead man's soul from
the fires of purgatory and induced him to show his thankfulness.
Kuni listened to her companion's rapid flood of talk, until she herself
enjoined silence to hear the black-robed priest who stood beside the
coffer.
He was just urging his hearers, in a loud voice, to abandon the base
avarice which gathers pence. There was still time to gain, in exchange
for dead florins, living salvation.
Let those who repented sin listen, and they would hear the voices of
wailing parents, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, and children, who
had preceded them to the other world. Whose heart was so utterly turned
to stone, whose parsimony, spite of all his love of money, was so strong
that he would allow these tortured souls to burn and suffer in the
flames, when it was in his power, by putting his hand into his purse, to
buy a dispensation which would as surely redeem them from the fires of
purgatory as his Imperial Majesty's pardon would release an imprisoned
thief from jail?
Scales seemed to fall from Kuni's eyes. She hastily forced her way to
the Dominican, who was just wiping the perspiration from his brow with
the hem of the white robe under his black cowl.
Coughing and panting, he was preparing his voice for a fresh appeal,
meanwhile opening the iron-bound box, and pointing out to the throng the
placard beside his head, which announced that the money obtained by the
indulgences was intended for the Turkish war. Then, in fluent language,
he explained to the bystanders that this meant that the Holy Father in
Rome intended to drive the hereditary foe of Christianity back to the
steppes and deserts of the land of Asia, where he belonged. In order to
accomplish this work, so pleasing to the Lord, the Church was ready to
make lavish use of the treasures of mercy intrusted to her. Deliverance
from the flames of purgatory would never be more cheaply purchased
than at this opportunity. Then he thrust his little fat hand, on which
several valuable rings glittered, into the box, and held out to the
bystanders a small bundle of papers like an open pack of cards.
Kuni summoned up her courage and asked whether they would also possess
the power to remove a curse. Tetzel eagerly assented, adding that he had
papers which would wash the soul as white from every sin as soap would
cleanse a sooty hand, even though, instead of "curse," its name was
"parricide."
The most costly had the power to transfer scoundrels roasting in the
hottest flames of purgatory to the joys of paradise, as yonder sparrow
had just soared from the dust of the street to the elm bough.
Kuni timidly asked the price of an indulgence, but the Dominican
unctuously explained that they were not sold like penny rolls at the
baker's; the heavier the sin, the higher the fine to be paid. First
of all, she must confess sincere contrition for what had been done
and inform him how, in spite of her youth, she had been led into such
heinous guilt. Kuni replied that she had long mourned her error most
deeply, and then began to whisper to Tetzel how she had been induced to
curse a fellow-mortal. She desired nothing for herself. Her sole wish
was to release the dead girl from the flames of purgatory, and the curse
which, by her guilt, burdened her soul. But the Dominican had only half
listened, and as many who wanted indulgences were crowding around his
box, he interrupted Kuni by offering her a paper which he would make
out in the name of the accursed Juliane Peutinger--if he had heard
correctly.
Such cases seemed to be very familiar to him, but the price he asked was
so large that the girl grew pale with terror.
Yet she must have the redeeming paper, and Tetzel lowered his price
after her declaration that she possessed only five heller pounds and
the convent viaticum. Besides, she stated that she had already bargained
with the carrier for the journey to the sea.
This, however, had no influence upon the Dominican, as the indulgence
made the pilgrimage to Compostella unnecessary. Since it would redeem
the accursed person from the fires of purgatory, she, too, was absolved
from the vow which drew her thither.
With stern decision he therefore insisted upon demanding the entire sum
in her possession. He could only do it so cheaply because her face and
her lost foot showed that she was destined to suffer part of the eternal
torture here on earth.
Then Kuni yielded. The paper was made out in the name of Juliane, she
gave up her little store, and returned to the inn a penniless beggar,
but with a lighter heart, carrying the precious paper under the
handkerchief crossed over her bosom. But there the carrier refused her
a seat without the money which she had promised him, and the landlord
demanded payment for her night's lodging and the bit of food she had
eaten.
Should she go back to the convent and ask for the little sum which
Lienhard had left there for her?
The struggle was a hard one, but pride finally conquered. She renounced
the kindly meant gift of her only friend. When the abbess returned the
money to him, he could not help perceiving that she was no beggar and
scorned to be his debtor. If he then asked himself why, he would find
the right answer. She did not confess it to herself in plain words, but
she wished to remain conscious that, whether he desired it or not, she
had given her heart's best love to this one man without reward, merely
because it was her pleasure to do it. At last she remembered that she
still possessed something valuable. She had not thought of it before,
because it had been as much a part of herself as her eyes or her lips,
and it would have seemed utterly impossible to part with it. This
article was a tolerably heavy gold ring, with a sparkling ruby in the
centre. She had drawn it from her father's finger after he had taken
his last leap and she was called to his corpse. She did not even know
whether he had received the circlet as a wedding ring from the mother of
whom she had no remembrance, or where he obtained it. But she had heard
that it was of considerable value, and when she set off to sell the
jewel, she did not find it very hard to gave it up. It seemed as if her
father, from the grave, was providing his poor child with the means she
needed to continue to support her life.
She had heard in the convent of Graslin, the goldsmith, who had bestowed
on the chapel a silver shrine for the relics, and went to him.
When she stood before the handsome gableroofed house which he occupied
she shrank back a little. At first he received her sternly and
repellantly enough, but, as soon as she introduced herself as the
ropedancer who had met with the accident, he showed himself to be a
kindly old gentleman.
After one of the city soldiers had said that she told the truth and had
just been dismissed from the convent, he paid her the full value of the
ring and added a florin out of sympathy and the admiration he felt for
the charm which still dwelt in her sparkling blue eyes.
But Compostella was indeed far away. Her new supply of money was
sufficient for the journey there, but how could she return? Besides, her
cough troubled her very seriously, and it seemed as though she could not
travel that long distance alone. The dealer in indulgences had said
that the paper made the pilgrimage unnecessary, and the confessor in
the convent had only commanded her to go to Altotting. With this
neighbouring goal before her, she turned her back upon Augsburg the
following morning.
Her hope of meeting on the way compassionate people, who would give her
a seat in their vehicles, was fulfilled. She reached Altotting sooner
than she had expected. During the journey, sometimes in a peasant's
cart, sometimes in a freight wagon, she had thought often of little
Juliane, and always with a quiet, nay, a contented heart. In the famous
old church, at the end of her pilgrimage, she saw a picture in which the
raked souls of children were soaring upward to heaven from the flames
blazing around them in purgatory.
The confessor had sent her to the right place.
Here a fervent prayer had the power to rescue a child's soul from the
fires of purgatory. Many other votive pictures, the pilgrims at the
inn, and a priest whom she questioned, confirmed it. She also heard
from various quarters that she had not paid too high a price for the
indulgence. This strengthened her courage and henceforward, nay, even
during the time of sore privation which she afterward endured, she
blessed a thousand times her resolve to buy the ransoming paper from
Tetzel, the Dominican; for she thought that she daily experienced its
power.
Whenever Juliane appeared, her face wore a friendly expression--nay,
once, in a dream, she floated before her as if she wished to thank her,
in the form of a beautiful angel with large pink and white wings. She no
longer needed to fear the horrible curse which she had called down upon
the little one, and once more thought of Lienhard with pleasure. When
he learned in the other world how she had atoned for the wrong which she
had done his little favourite, she would be sure of his praise.
To be held in light esteem, nay, even despised, was part of her calling,
like her constant wandering. She had longed for applause in her art,
but for herself she had desired nothing save swift draughts of pleasure,
since she had learned how little she was regarded by the only person
whose opinion she valued. She could never have expected that he would
hold her in high esteem, since he was so indifferent to her art that he
did not even think it worth while to lift his eyes to the rope. Yet the
idea that he placed her in the same rank with others in her profession
seemed unendurable. But she need grieve over this no longer, and when
she remembered that even the sorest want had not been able to induce her
to touch his alms, she could have fairly shouted for joy amid all her
misery. The conviction that one man, who was the best and noblest of his
sex, might deem her a poor, unfortunate girl, but never a creature who
deserved contempt, was the beam to which she clung, when the surges of
her pitiable, wandering life threatened to close over her and stifle
her.