benediction to this matrimonial anomaly; and be persuaded, for the
Count's sake, to refound, by the word of his mouth, the substance, form
and essence of the Sacrament of Marriage. The pilgrimage accordingly set
forth from Venice to Rome, where the Princess Melechsala solemnly
abjured the Koran, and entered into the bosom of the Church. At this
spiritual conquest the Holy Father testified as much delight as if the
kingdom of Antichrist had been entirely destroyed, or reduced under
subjection to the Romish chair; and after the baptism, on which occasion
she had changed her Saracenic name for the more orthodox _Angelica_, he
caused a pompous _Te-deum_ to be celebrated in St. Peter's. These happy
aspects Count Ernst endeavoured to improve for his purpose, before the
Pope's good-humour should evaporate. He brought his matrimonial concern
to light without delay: but, alas! no sooner asked than rejected. The
conscience of St. Peter's Vicar was so tender in this case, that he
reckoned it a greater heresy to advocate triplicity in marriage than
Tritheism itself. Many plausible arguments as the Count brought forward
to accomplish an exception from the common rule in his own favour, they
availed no jot in moving the exemplary Pope to wink with one eye of his
conscience, and vouchsafe the petitioned dispensation: a result which
cut Count Ernst to the heart. His sly counsel, the mettled Kurt, had in
the mean time struck out a bright expedient for accomplishing the
marriage of his master with the fair convert, to the satisfaction of the
Pope and Christendom in general; only he had not risked disclosing it,
lest it might cost him his master's favour. Yet at last he found his
opportunity, and put the matter into words. "Dear master," said he, "do
not vex yourself so much about the Pope's perverseness. If you cannot
get round him on the one side, you must try him on the other: there are
more roads to the wood than one. If the Holy Father has too tender a
conscience to permit your taking two wives, then it is fair for you also
to have a tender conscience, though you are no priest but a layman.
Conscience is a cloak that covers every hole, and has withal the quality
that it can be turned according to the wind: at present, when the wind
is cross, you must put the cloak on the other shoulder. Examine whether
you are not related to the Countess Ottilia within the prohibited
degrees: if so, as will surely be the case, if you have a tender
conscience, then the game is your own. Get a divorce; and who the deuce
can hinder you from wedding the Princess then?"
The Count had listened to his Squire till the sense of his oration was
completely before him; then he answered it with two words, shortly and
clearly: "Peace, Dog!" In the same moment, the mettled Kurt found
himself lying at full length without the door, and seeking for a tooth
or two which had dropped from him in this rapid transit. "Ah! the
precious tooth," cried he from without, "has been sacrificed to my
faithful zeal!" This tooth monologue reminded the Count of his dream.
"Ah! the cursed tooth," cried he from within, "which I dreamed of
losing, has been the cause of all this mischief!" His heart, between
self-reproaches for unfaithfulness to his amiable wife, and for
prohibited love to the charming Angelica, kept wavering like a bell,
which yields a sound on both sides, when set in motion. Still more than
the flame of his passion, the fire of indignation burnt and gnawed him,
now that he saw the visible impossibility of ever keeping his word to
the Princess, and taking her in wedlock. All which distresses, by the
way, led him to the just experimental conclusion, that a parted heart is
not the most desirable of things; and that the lover, in these
circumstances, but too much resembles the Ass Baldwin between his two
bundles of hay.
In such a melancholy posture of affairs, he lost his jovial humour
altogether, and wore the aspect of an atrabiliar, whom in bad weather
the atmosphere oppresses till the spleen is like to crush the soul out
of his body. Princess Angelica observed that her lover's looks were no
longer as yesterday, and ere-yesterday: it grieved her soft heart, and
moved her to resolve on making trial whether she should not be more
successful, if she took the dispensation business in her own hand. She
requested audience of the conscientious Gregory; and appeared before him
closely veiled, according to the fashion of her country. No Roman eye
had yet seen her face, except the priest who baptised her. His Holiness
received the new-born daughter of the Church with all suitable respect,
offered her the palm of his right hand to kiss, and not his perfumed
slipper. The fair stranger raised her veil a little to touch the sacred
hand with her lips; then opened her mouth, and clothed her petition in a
touching address. Yet this insinuation through the Papal ear seemed not
sufficiently to know the interior organisation of the Head of the
Church; for instead of taking the road to the heart, it passed through
the other ear out into the air. Father Gregory expostulated long with
the lovely supplicant; and imagined he had found a method for in some
degree contenting her desire of union with a bridegroom, without offence
to the ordinations of the Church: he proposed to her a spiritual
wedlock, if she could resolve on a slight change of the veil, the
Saracenic for the Nun's. This proposal suddenly awakened in the Princess
such a horror at veils, that she directly tore away her own; sank full
of despair before the holy footstool, and with uplifted hands and
tearful eyes, conjured the venerable Father by his sacred slipper, not
to do violence to her heart, and constrain her to bestow it elsewhere.
The sight of her beauty was more eloquent than her lips; it enraptured
all present; and the tear which gathered in her heavenly eye fell like a
burning drop of naphtha on the Holy Father's heart, and kindled the
small fraction of earthly tinder that still lay hid there, and warmed it
into sympathy for the petitioner. "Rise, beloved daughter," said he,
"and weep not! What has been determined in Heaven, shall be fulfilled in
thee on Earth. In three days thou shalt know whether this thy first
prayer to the Church can be granted by that gracious Mother, or must be
denied." Thereupon he summoned an assembly of all the Casuists in Rome;
had a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine distributed to each; and locked
them up in the Rotunda, with the warning that no one of them should be
let out again till the question had been determined unanimously. So long
as the loaves and wine held out, the disputes were so violent, that all
the Saints, had they been convened in the church, could not have argued
with greater noise. But so soon as the Digestive Faculty began to have a
voice in the meeting, he was listened to with the deepest attention, and
happily he spoke in favour of the Count, who had got a sumptuous feast
made ready for the entertainment of the casuistic Doctors, when the
Papal seal should be removed from their door. The Bull of Dispensation
was drawn out in proper form of law; in furtherance of which the fair
Angelica had, not at all reluctantly, inflicted a determined cut upon
the treasures of Egypt. Father Gregory bestowed his benediction on the
noble pair, and sent them away betrothed. They lost no time in leaving
Peter's Patrimony for the territories of the Count, to celebrate their
nuptials on arriving.
When Count Ernst, on this side the Alps, again inhaled his native air,
and felt it come soft and kindly round his heart, he mounted his steed;
galloped forward, attended only by the heavy Groom, and left the
Princess, under the escort of the mettled Kurt, to follow him by easy
journeys.
His heart beat high within him, when he saw in azure distance the three
towers of Gleichen. He meant to take his gentle Countess by surprise;
but the news of his approach had preceded him, as on the wings of the
wind; she went forth with man and maid, and met her husband a furlong
from the Castle, in a pleasant green, which, in memory of this event, is
called the Freudenthal, or Valley of Joy, to this day. The meeting on
both sides was as trustful and tender, as if no partition treaty had
ever been thought of: for Countess Ottilia was a proper pattern of the
pious wife, that obeys without commentary the marriage precept of
subjecting her will to the will of her husband. If at times there did
arise some small sedition in her heart, she did not on the instant ring
the alarm-bell; but she shut door and window, that no mortal eye might
look in and see what passed; and then summoned the rebel Passion to the
bar of Reason; gave it over in custody to Prudence, and imposed on
herself a voluntary penance.
She could not pardon her heart for having murmured at the rival sun that
was to shine beside her on the matrimonial horizon; and to expiate the
offence, she had secretly commissioned a triple bedstead, with stout fir
posts, painted green, the colour of Hope; and a round vaulted tester, in
the form of a dome, adorned with winged puffy-cheeked heads of angels.
On the silken coverlet, which lay for show over the downy quilts, was
exhibited in fine embroidery, the Angel Raphael, as he had appeared to
her in vision, beside the Count in pilgrim weeds. This speaking proof of
her ready matrimonial complaisance affected her husband to the soul. He
clasped her to his breast, and overpowered her with kisses, at the sight
of this arrangement for the completion of his wedded joys.
"Glorious wife!" cried he with rapture, "this temple of love exalts thee
above thousands of thy sex; as an honourable memorial, it will transmit
thy name to future ages; and while a splinter of this wood remains,
husbands will recount to their wives thy exemplary conduct."
In a few days afterwards, the Princess also arrived in safety, and was
received by the Count in full gala. Ottilia came to meet her with open
arms and heart, and conducted her into the Palace, as the partner in all
its privileges. The double bridegroom then set out to Erfurt, for the
Bishop to perform the marriage ceremony. This pious prelate was
extremely shocked at the proposal, and signified, that in his diocese no
such scandal could be tolerated. But, on Count Ernst's bringing out the
papal dispensation, signed and sealed in due form, it acted as a lock on
his Reverence's lips; though his doubting looks, and shaking of the
head, still indicated that the Steersman of the bark of the universal
Church had bored a hole in the keel, which bade fair to swamp the
vessel, and send it to the bottom of the sea.
The nuptials were celebrated with becoming pomp and splendour; Countess
Ottilia, who acted as mistress of the ceremonies, had invited widely;
and the counts and knights, over all Thuringia, far and wide, came
crowding to assist at this unusual wedding. Before the Count led his
bride to the altar, she opened her jewel-box, and consigned to him all
its treasures that remained from the expenses of the dispensation, as a
dowry; in return for which, he conferred on her the lands of Ehrenstein,
by way of jointure. The chaste myrtle twined itself about the golden
crown, which latter ornament the Sultan's daughter, as a testimony of
her high birth, retained through life; and was, in consequence,
invariably named the Queen by her subjects, and by her domestics
reverenced and treated like a queen.
If any of my readers ever purchased for himself, for fifty guineas, the
costly pleasure of resting a night in Doctor Graham's _Celestial Bed_ at
London, he may form some slender conception of the Count's delight, when
the triple bed at Gleichen opened its elastic bosom to receive the
twice-betrothed, with both his spouses. Seven days long the nuptial
festivities continued; and the Count declared himself richly compensated
by them for the seven dreary years which he had been obliged to spend in
the Grated Tower at Grand Cairo. Nor would this appear to have been an
empty compliment on his part to his two faithful wives, if the
experimental apophthegm is just, that a single day of gladness sweetens
into oblivion the bitter dole and sorrow of a troublous year.
Next to the Count, there was none who relished this exhilarating period
better than his trusty Squire, the mettled Kurt, who, in the well-stored
kitchen and cellar, found the elements of royal cheer, and stoutly
emptied the cup of joy which circulated fast among the servants; while
the full table pricked up their ears as he opened his lips, his inner
man once satisfied with good things, and began to recount them his
adventures. But when the Gleichic economy returned to its customary
frugal routine, he requested permission to set out for Ordruff, to visit
his kind wife, and overwhelm her with joy at his unexpected return.
During his long absence, he had constantly maintained a rigorous
fidelity, and he now longed for the just reward of so exemplary a walk
and conversation. Fancy painted to his mind's eye the image of his
virtuous Rebecca in the liveliest colours; and the nearer he approached
the walls which enclosed her, the brighter grew these hues. He saw her
stand before him in the charms which had delighted him on his
wedding-day; he saw how excess of joy at his happy arrival would
overpower her spirits, and she would sink in speechless rapture into his
arms.
Encircled with this fair retinue of dreams, he arrived at the gate of
his native town, without observing it, till the watchful guardian of
public tranquillity let down his beam in front of him, and questioned
the stranger, Who he was, what business had brought him to the town, and
whether his intentions were peaceable or not? The mettled Kurt gave
ready answer; and now rode along the streets at a soft pace, lest his
horse's tramp might too soon betray the secret of his coming. He
fastened his beast to the door-ring, and stole, without noise, into the
court of his dwelling, where the old chained house-dog first received
him with joyful bark. Yet he wondered somewhat at the sight of two
lively chub-faced children, like the Angels in the Gleichen bed-tester,
frisking to and fro upon the area. He had no time to speculate on the
phenomenon, for the mistress of the house, in her carefulness, stept out
of doors to see who was there. Alas, what a difference between ideal and
original! The tooth of Time had, in these seven years, been mercilessly
busy with her charms; yet the leading features of her physiognomy had
been in so far spared, that to the eye of the critic she was still
recognisable, like the primary stamp of a worn coin. Joy at meeting
somewhat veiled this want of beauty from the mettled Kurt, and the
thought that sorrow for his absence had so furrowed the smooth face of
his consort put him into a sentimental mood; he embraced her with great
cordiality, and said: "Welcome, dear wife of my heart! Forget all thy
sorrow. See, I am still alive; thou hast got me back!"
The pious Rebecca answered this piece of tenderness by a heavy thwack on
the short ribs, which thwack made the mettled Kurt stagger to the wall;
then raised loud shrieks, and shouted to her servants for help against
violence, and scolded and stormed like an Infernal Fury. The loving
husband excused this unloving reception, on the score of his virtuous
spouse's delicacy, which his bold kiss of welcome had offended, she not
knowing who he was; and tore his lungs with bawling to undo this error;
but his preaching was to deaf ears, and he soon found that there was no
misunderstanding in the case. "Thou shameless varlet," cried she, in
shrieking treble, "after wandering seven long years up and down the
world, following thy wicked courses with other women, dost thou think
that I will take thee back to my chaste bed? Off with thee! Did not I
publicly cite thee at three church-doors, and wert not thou, for thy
contumacious non-appearance, declared to be dead as mutton? Did not the
High Court authorise me to put aside my widow's chair, and marry
Buergermeister Wipprecht? Have not we lived six years as man and wife,
and received these children as a blessing of our wedlock? And now comes
the Marpeace to perplex my house! Off with thee! Pack, I say, this
instant, or the Amtmann shall crop thy ears, and put thee in the
pillory, to teach such vagabonds, that run and leave their poor tender
wives." This welcome from his once-loved helpmate was a sword's-thrust
through the heart of the mettled Kurt; but the gall poured itself as a
defence into his blood.
"O thou faithless strumpet!" answered he; "what holds me that I do not
take thee and thy bastards, and wring your necks this moment? Dost thou
recollect thy promise, and the oath thou hast so often sworn in the
trustful marriage-bed, that death itself should not part thee from me?
Didst thou not engage, unasked, that should thy soul fly up directly
from thy mouth to Heaven, and I were roasting in Purgatory, thou wouldst
turn again from Heaven's gate, and come down to me, to fan cool air upon
me till I were delivered from the flames? Devil broil thy false tongue,
thou gallows carrion!"
Though the Prima Donna of Ordruff was endowed with a glib organ, which,
in the faculty of cursing, yielded no whit to that of the tumultuous
pretender, she did not judge it good to enter into farther debate with
him, but gave her menials an expressive sign; and, in an instant, man
and maid seized hold of the mettled Kurt, and _brevi manu_ ejected his
body from the house; in which act of domestic jurisdiction Dame Rebecca
herself bore a hand with the besom, and so swept away this discarded
helpmate from the premises. The mettled Kurt, half-broken on the wheel,
then mounted his horse, and dashed full gallop down the street, which he
had rode along so gingerly some minutes before.
As his blood, when he was on the road home, began to cool, he counted
loss and gain, and found himself not ill contented with the balance; for
he found, that except the comfort of having cool air fanned upon his
soul in Purgatory after death, his smart amounted to nothing. He never
more returned to Ordruff, but continued with the Count at Gleichen all
his life, and was an eye-witness of the most incredible occurrence, that
two ladies shared the love of one man without quarrelling or jealousy,
and this even under one bed-tester! The fair Angelica continued
childless, yet she loved and watched over her associate's children as if
they had been her own, and divided with Ottilia the care of their
education. In the trefoil of this happy marriage, she was the first leaf
which faded away in the autumn of life. Countess Ottilia soon followed
her; and the afflicted widower, now all too lonely in his large castle
and wide bed, lingered but a few months longer. The firmly-established
arrangement of these noble spouses in the marriage-bed through life, was
maintained unaltered after their death. They rest all three in one
grave, in front of the Gleichen Altar, in St. Peter's Church at Erfurt,
on the Hill; where their place of sepulture is still to be seen,
overlaid with a stone, on which the noble group are sculptured after the
life. To the right lies the Countess Ottilia, with a mirror in her hand,
the emblem of her praiseworthy prudence; on the left Angelica, adorned
with a royal crown; and in the midst, the Count reposing on his
coat-of-arms, the lion-leopard.[27] Their famous triple bedstead is
still preserved as a relic in the old Castle; it stands in the room
called the Junkernkammer, or Knight's Chamber; and a splinter of it,
worn by way of busk in a lady's bodice, is said to have the virtue of
dispelling every movement of jealousy from her heart.
[27] A plate of this tombstone may be seen in Falkenstein's
_Analecta Nordgaviensia_.--M.
LUDWIG TIECK.
THE FAIR-HAIRED ECKBERT.[28]
In a district of the Harz dwelt a Knight, whose common designation in
that quarter was the Fair-haired Eckbert. He was about forty years of
age, scarcely of middle stature, and short light-coloured locks lay
close and sleek round his pale and sunken countenance. He led a retired
life, had never interfered in the feuds of his neighbours; indeed,
beyond the outer wall of his castle he was seldom to be seen. His wife
loved solitude as much as he; both seemed heartily attached to one
another; only now and then they would lament that Heaven had not blessed
their marriage with children.
Few came to visit Eckbert; and when guests did happen to be with him,
their presence made but little alteration in his customary way of life.
Temperance abode in his household, and Frugality herself appeared to be
the mistress of the entertainment. On these occasions Eckbert was always
cheerful and lively; but when he was alone, you might observe in him a
certain mild reserve, a still, retiring melancholy.
His most frequent guest was Philip Walther; a man to whom he had
attached himself, from having found in him a way of thinking like his
own. Walther's residence was in Franconia; but he would often stay for
half a year in Eckbert's neighbourhood, gathering plants and minerals,
and then sorting and arranging them. He lived on a small independency,
and was connected with no one. Eckbert frequently attended him in his
sequestered walks; year after year a closer friendship grew betwixt
them.
[28] Prefatory Introduction to Tieck, _supra_, at p. 330, Vol. VI.
of _Works_ (Vol. I. of _Miscellanies_).
There are hours in which a man feels grieved that he should have a
secret from his friend, which, till then, he may have kept with niggard
anxiety; some irresistible desire lays hold of our heart to open itself
wholly, to disclose its inmost recesses to our friend, that so he may
become our friend still more. It is in such moments that tender souls
unveil themselves, and stand face to face; and at times it will happen,
that the one recoils affrighted from the countenance of the other.
It was late in Autumn, when Eckbert, one cloudy evening, was sitting,
with his friend and his wife Bertha, by the parlour fire. The flame cast
a red glimmer through the room, and sported on the ceiling; the night
looked sullenly in through the windows, and the trees without rustled in
wet coldness. Walther complained of the long road he had to travel; and
Eckbert proposed to him to stay where he was, to while away half of the
night in friendly talk, and then to take a bed in the house till
morning. Walther agreed, and the whole was speedily arranged: by and by
wine and supper were brought in; fresh wood was laid upon the fire; the
talk grew livelier and more confidential.
The cloth being removed, and the servants gone, Eckbert took his
friend's hand, and said to him: "Now you must let my wife tell you the
history of her youth; it is curious enough, and you should know it."
"With all my heart," said Walther; and the party again drew round the
hearth.
It was now midnight; the moon looked fitfully through the breaks of the
driving clouds. "You must not reckon me a babbler," began the lady. "My
husband says you have so generous a mind, that it is not right in us to
hide aught from you. Only do not take my narrative for a fable, however
strangely it may sound.
"I was born in a little village; my father was a poor herdsman. Our
circumstances were not of the best; often we knew not where to find our
daily bread. But what grieved me far more than this, were the quarrels
which my father and mother often had about their poverty, and the bitter
reproaches they cast on one another. Of myself too, I heard nothing said
but ill; they were forever telling me that I was a silly stupid child,
that I could not do the simplest turn of work; and in truth I was
extremely inexpert and helpless; I let things fall; I neither learned to
sew nor spin; I could be of no use to my parents; only their straits I
understood too well. Often I would sit in a corner, and fill my little
heart with dreams, how I would help them, if I should all at once grow
rich; how I would overflow them with silver and gold, and feast myself
on their amazement; and then spirits came hovering up, and showed me
buried treasures, or gave me little pebbles which changed into precious
stones; in short, the strangest fancies occupied me, and when I had to
rise and help with anything, my inexpertness was still greater, as my
head was giddy with these motley visions.
"My father in particular was always very cross to me; he scolded me for
being such a burden to the house; indeed he often used me rather
cruelly, and it was very seldom that I got a friendly word from him. In
this way I had struggled on to near the end of my eighth year; and now
it was seriously fixed that I should begin to do or learn something. My
father still maintained that it was nothing but caprice in me, or a lazy
wish to pass my days in idleness: accordingly he set upon me with
furious threats; and as these made no improvement, he one day gave me a
most cruel chastisement, and added that the same should be repeated day
after day, since I was nothing but a useless sluggard.
"That whole night I wept abundantly; I felt myself so utterly forsaken,
I had such a sympathy with myself that I even longed to die. I dreaded
the break of day; I knew not on earth what I was to do or try. I wished
from my very heart to be clever, and could not understand how I should
be worse than the other children of the place. I was on the borders of
despair.
"At the dawn of day I arose, and scarcely knowing what I did, unfastened
the door of our little hut. I stept upon the open field; next minute I
was in a wood, where the light of the morning had yet hardly penetrated.
I ran along, not looking round; for I felt no fatigue, and I still
thought my father would catch me, and in his anger at my flight would
beat me worse than ever.
"I had reached the other side of the forest, and the sun was risen a
considerable way; I saw something dim lying before me, and a thick fog
resting over it. Ere long my path began to mount, at one time I was
climbing hills, at another winding among rocks; and I now guessed that I
must be among the neighbouring Mountains; a thought that made me shudder
in my loneliness. For, living in the plain country, I had never seen a
hill; and the very word Mountains, when I heard talk of them, had been a
sound of terror to my young ear. I had not the heart to go back, my fear
itself drove me on; often I looked round affrighted when the breezes
rustled over me among the trees, or the stroke of some distant woodman
sounded far through the still morning. And when I began to meet with
charcoal-men and miners, and heard their foreign way of speech, I had
nearly fainted for terror.