As soon as the sufferer's condition would permit, Kuni left her, went to
the window of the taproom in The Blue Pike, and surveyed its inmates.
Most of them were already asleep on heaps of straw, which were raised at
the head by chairs turned upside down. The richer guests had gone to
the bedrooms, which, however, they were obliged to share with several
others. Some of the strollers were lying on the floor with their
knapsacks under their heads. A few of the musicians were still lingering
over the wine which the travelling merchants and artisans had ordered
for them. Others had gone with some of the vagrants into the little wood
beyond the meadow, where they danced, fiddled, and sang.
Their loud shouts were borne by the cool night breeze to the sufferer in
the cart. The gentlemen from Cologne, without troubling themselves about
the boisterous merriment of the burghers or the transformation of the
room into a sleeping apartment, were still sitting at the table talking
together eagerly.
The dealer in the indulgences, too, had not yet gone to rest. A
tall, broad-shouldered sergeant belonging to the escort had just
purchased--for the larger part of the zecchins won as his share of the
booty in the Italian war--the indulgence which he thought would secure
him from the tortures of the fire of purgatory. Before opening the door,
he struck his broad breast as though relieved of a heavy burden.
The ropedancer looked after him thoughtfully. The paper had now
lightened the sergeant's heart as it had formerly done her own. Would
she not have been wiser to give her money for the redemption of Nickel's
lost soul than for the orphans, whom the charity of the people would
perhaps have succoured without her? Probably, too, it would have
afforded still greater consolation to the poor dying woman, whom nothing
troubled so sorely as her guilt for the doom of her unfortunate husband.
Yet, even thus she had succeeded in making the dying mother's departure
easier, and what she had commenced she intended to complete at once.
With a tender smile that lent strange beauty to her pallid, grief-worn
face she continued her survey.
She had previously noticed an old priest, whose countenance bore the
impress of genuine kindness of heart. She soon found him again among the
travellers sleeping on the straw; but the old man's slumber was so sound
that she felt reluctant to wake him. Among the Dominicans from Cologne,
most of whom were also asleep, there were none she would have trusted,
nay, she even thought that one was the very person who, shortly before
her fall from the rope, had pursued her with persistent importunity.
But the Abbot of St. AEgidius in Nuremberg, who had dined with the
ambassadors from his native city, was also a man of benevolent, winning
expression. His cheeks were flushed, either by the heat or the wine
which he had drunk, but there was a look of attractive kindness upon his
well-formed features. When he went through the room a short time before,
Kuni had seen him pass his hand caressingly over the fair hair of the
pretty little son of a potter's wife from Reren on the Rhine, whose cart
was standing outside in the meadow by the Main. He was scarcely of the
same mind as the gentleman from Cologne, for he had just waved his plump
hand in protest.
Perhaps she might even do him a favour by summoning him. But dared she,
a poor vagabond, disturb so distinguished a gentleman at his wine?
Yet there was danger in delay. So she resolved to ask the assistance of
the landlady of The Pike, coughed with her handkerchief pressed over
her lips, in order not to disturb the sleepers, and turned to leave the
room.
But Gitta had just been to see the sick mother, and told Cyriax that
Kuni, silly, softhearted thing, had wasted her gold coins on the dying
woman.
The blasphemer flew into a great rage, muttered a few words to
pock-marked Ratz, and then staggered toward their lame travelling
companion to bar her passage across the threshold, and ask, in angry,
guttural tones, how much of the Groland gold she had flung into the
dying woman's grave.
"Is it any business of yours?" was the reply, uttered with difficulty
amid her coughing.
"Mine, mine--is it any business of mine?" gasped the tongueless man.
Then he raised his heavy fist threateningly and stammered jeeringly:
"Not--not a red heller more nor less than my cart--in the name of all
the fiends--than my cart is of yours. Four heller pounds, Ratz, and the
donkey and cart are yours."
"Done!" cried the vagrant, who already had his money ready; but the
tongueless blasphemer chuckled with malicious pleasure:
"Now you have it, fool! Whoever doesn't share with me--you know
that--doesn't ride with me."
Then he staggered back to Gitta.
The girl watched him silently for a while. At last she passed her hand
quickly across her brow, as if to dispel some unpleasant thought, and
shook her burning head, half sadly, half disapprovingly.
She had done a good deed--and this, this--But she had not performed it
for the sake of reward, she had only desired to aid the sufferer.
Straightening herself proudly, she limped toward the kitchen.
Here, frequently interrupted by fits of coughing, she told the landlady
of The Pike in touching words that the sick mother, whom she had so
kindly strengthened with nice broth, desired the sacrament, as her life
would soon be over. The Lord Abbot of St. AEgidius in Nuremberg was
still sitting over his wine.
She went no further. The landlady, who, while Kuni was talking, had
wiped her pretty flushed face with her apron, pulled the rolled up white
linen sleeves farther down over her plump arms, and gazed with mingled
surprise and approval into the girl's emaciated face, interrupted her
with the promise to do what she could for the poor woman.
"If it were any one else," she continued, significantly, "I would
not venture to try it. But the Abbot of St. AEgidius, in his charity,
scarcely asks, when help is needed, whence did you come, who are you,
or what do you possess? I know him. Wait here a little while. If he
condescends to do it, you can take him to the poor creature at once."
While speaking she smoothed, with two swift motions of her hands, the
brown hair which had become a little disordered while bustling to and
fro to attend to the business, dipped her hands into the water pail,
dried them quickly on her apron, untied it, and tossed it to the maid.
Then she cleared her throat vigorously and left the kitchen.
In reply to the anxious question of her husband, whom she met on the
threshold of the room, as to what she was seeking there, she answered
firmly, "What is right and pious"; then modestly whispered her request
to the abbot.
Her wish was fulfilled without delay, nay, it might really have been
supposed that the interruption was very opportune to the distinguished
prelate; for, with the brief exclamation, "Imperative official duty!"
he rose from the table, and went first with the landlady to Kuni and
afterward with the latter to the cart beside the laden potter's wain,
whose white tilt gleamed in the darkness.
The landlady had undertaken to send to the sexton, whose house was near,
that he might immediately obtain everything the abbot needed for the
dying woman's viaticum.
Kuni told the sufferer what an exalted servant of the Church was ready
to receive her confession and give her the sacrament.
Then she whispered that she might mention Nickel's burdened soul to the
abbot. Whatever happened, she could now depart from earth in peace.
Reserving for herself half of the flowers she had gathered in the garden
she glided away, in order not to disturb the dying woman's confession.