After a few days more of restless walking, it was with a beating heart,
and eyes swimming in tears, that I once more beheld the well-known
towers of the Cistertian Monastery, and village of Heidebach. Anxious as
I now am to wind up this long and painful narrative, I shall not pause
to describe and analyze my feelings at thus visiting once more the
scenes of my youth, which, in the yellow light of a still autumnal day,
lay in all their wonted calmness and beauty before me.
I passed through the village, went up the hill, and came to the great
square shaded by tall trees before the gate of the convent. Here, for
some time, I paused, seating myself on a stone bench in a recess,
reviving all my oldest and most cherished recollections, that came over
my mind like shadows of a dream. Scarcely could I now believe that I was
the same Francesco who had there spent so many years with a heart
unclouded by care, and to whom guilt and remorse were yet known only by
name.
While thus occupied, I heard at some distance a swelling voice of
melody--it was an anthem sung by male voices. A large crucifix became
visible, and I found that a procession was coming up the hill. The monks
walked in pairs, and at the first glance I recognized that they were my
own brethren, and that the old Leonardus, supported by a young man whose
name I did not know, was at their head. Without noticing me, they
continued their anthem, and passed on through the convent gate.
They were followed by the Dominicans and Franciscans, also from the town
of Koenigswald, and walking in the same order of procession. Then several
coaches drove up, in which were the nuns of St Clare. From all this I
perceived that some remarkable festival was now to be solemnized.
The church doors were opened, and I went in. People were adorning the
altars, and especially the high altar, with flower garlands, and a
sacristan gave directions for a great quantity of fresh roses, as the
Abbess had particularly desired that they should predominate. Having
resolved that I would immediately request permission to join my
brethren, I first strengthened myself by fervent prayer, after which I
went into the convent, and inquired for the Prior Leonardus.
The porteress then led me into a hall, where the Prior was seated in an
arm-chair, surrounded by his brethren. Agitated to the utmost degree,
and indeed quite overpowered, I could not refrain from bursting into
tears, and falling at his feet. "Medardus!" he exclaimed, and a murmur
sounded immediately through the ranks of all the brethren. "Brother
Medardus!" said they--"Brother Medardus, the long-lost, is returned!"
I was immediately lifted up from the prostration into which I had
involuntarily sunk, and all the brethren, even those with whom I was
before unacquainted, fervently embraced me.--"Thanks and everlasting
praise," they exclaimed, "to the mercy and long-suffering of Heaven,
that you have thus been rescued from the snares and temptations of that
deceitful world. But relate, dearest brother--tell us your
adventures--all that you have encountered!"
Thus there arose among them a murmur of confused and anxious inquiries;
but, meanwhile, the Prior rose up and made a sign for me to follow him
privately into another room, which was regularly appropriated for his
use when he visited the convent.
"Medardus," he began, "you have in the most wicked manner broken your
monastic vows, and deceived that faith which was reposed in you by all
our community. Instead of fulfilling the commissions with which I
intrusted you, you became a disgraceful fugitive, no one knows why, nor
whither. On this account, I could order you to be imprisoned for life,
or to be immured, and left to perish without food or drink, if I chose
to act according to the severe laws of our order."
"Judge me, then, venerable father," interrupted I--"judge me according
as the conventual law directs. I should resign with pleasure the burden
of a miserable life; for indeed I feel but too deeply that the severest
penance to which I could subject myself, would to me bring no
consolation."
"Recover yourself," said Leonardus; "be composed and tranquil. I have
now fulfilled my duty in speaking to you as an abbot; but, as a friend
and father, I have yet to address you, and to hear what you have to say
in your own justification. In a wonderful manner you have been rescued
at Rome, from the death with which you was threatened. To the disorders
which prevail there, Cyrillus has been the only sacrifice."
"Is it possible, then," said I, "that you already know----"
"I know it all," answered the Prior; "I am aware, that you rendered
spiritual assistance to the poor man in his last moments; and I have
been informed of the stratagem of the Dominicans, who thought they had
administered deadly poison in the wine which they offered you as a
cordial drink. Had you swallowed but a single drop, it must have caused
your death in a few minutes; of course you found some opportune method
of evading this."
"Only look here," said I, and, rolling up the sleeve of my tunic, shewed
the Prior my withered arm, which was like that of a skeleton; describing
to him, at the same time, how I had suspected the fate that was intended
me, and found means to pour all the liquor into my sleeve.
Leonardus started as he beheld this frightful spectacle, and muttered to
himself--"Thou hast indeed done penance, as it was fitting, for thou
hast committed many crimes.--But Cyrillus--the good and pious
Cyrillus!"----
He paused, and I took this opportunity of remarking, that the precise
cause of my brother's death, and the accusation which had been made
against him, remained, up to that day, unknown to me.
"Perhaps you too," said the Prior, "would have shared the same fate, if,
like him, you had stepped forward as a plenipotentiary of our convent.
You already know, that the claim of our house, if admitted, and carried
into effect, would almost annihilate the income of the Cardinal
von ----; which income he at present draws without any right to its
appropriation. This was the reason why the Cardinal suddenly made up a
friendship with the Pope's father confessor, (with whom he had till then
been at variance,) and thus acquired, in the Dominican, a powerful ally,
whom he could employ against Cyrillus.
"The latter was introduced to the Pope, and received with particular
favour; in such manner, that he was admitted into the society of the
dignitaries by whom his Holiness is surrounded, and enabled to appear as
often as he chose at the Vatican. Cyrillus, of course, soon became
painfully aware, how much the Vicegerent of God seeks and finds his
kingdom in this world, and its pleasures,--how he is made subservient as
the mere tool of a mob of hypocrites, who turn him hither and thither,
as if vacillating between heaven and hell. Doubtless this seems
inconsistent with the powerful talents and energetic spirit, of which he
has, on various occasions, shewn himself possessed; but which they
contrive, by the most abominable means, to pervert and to subdue.
"Our pious brother Cyrillus, as might have been foreseen, was much
distressed at all this, and found himself called on, by irresistible
impulses, to avert, if possible, the misfortunes which might thus fall
upon the church. Accordingly, as the spirit moved him, he took divers
opportunities to rouse and agitate, by the most fervid eloquence, the
heart of the Pope, and forcibly to disengage his soul from all
terrestrial pleasures or ambition.
"The Pope, as it usually happens to enfeebled minds, was, in truth, much
affected by what Cyrillus had said; and this was precisely the
opportunity which his wicked ministers had watched for, in order to
carry their plans into execution. With an air of great mystery and
importance, they revealed to his Holiness their discovery of nothing
less than a regular conspiracy against him, which was to deprive him of
the triple crown. For this purpose, Cyrillus had been commissioned to
deliver these private lectures, and induce the Pope to submit to some
public act of penance, which would serve as a signal for the open
out-break of the rebellion that was already organized among the
cardinals.
"Accordingly, on the next appearance of our zealous and excellent
brother, the Pope imagined that, in his present discourse, he could
detect many concealed and treacherous designs. Cyrillus, however, did
not hesitate to persist in his attempts, assuring his Holiness, that he
who did not wholly renounce the pleasures of this world, and humble his
heart, even as the most submissive and self-accusing penitent, was
wholly unfit to be the Vicegerent of God, and would bring a load of
reproach and shame on the church, from which the latter should make
itself free.
"After one of these interviews, the iced-water which the Pope was in the
habit of drinking, was found to have been poisoned. That Cyrillus was
perfectly guiltless on that score, it is needless for me to make any
assertion to you, who knew him. His Holiness, however, was convinced of
his guilt; and the order for his imprisonment and execution in the
Dominican Convent was the consequence.
"The hatred of the Dominicans towards you, after the attention which you
had received from the Pope, and his intentions openly expressed of
raising the Capuchin penitent to high dignities, requires no
explanation. You had thus become more dangerous, in their estimation,
than Cyrillus had ever been; and they would have felt the less remorse
at your destruction, as they doubted not that your penitential
observances were the result of the basest hypocrisy, and a desire of
temporal advancement.
"With regard to my accurate knowledge of all that occurred to you in
Rome, there is in this no mystery. I have a friend at the metropolis,
who is thoroughly acquainted even with the most secret occurrences which
take place in the Vatican, and who faithfully informs me of them by
letters, written in a cypher which has hitherto baffled all attempts at
discovery.
"But on my side, there are many questions to be asked, of which the
solution yet appears to me an inscrutable mystery. When you lived at the
Capuchin Convent, near to Rome, of which the Prior is my near relation,
I believed that your penitence was genuine, and from the heart. Yet, in
the city, you must have been actuated by very different motives. Above
all, why did you seek to gain the Pope's attention by an incredible and
marvellous story? Why accuse yourself of crimes which you had never
committed? Were you, then, ever at the castle of the Baron von F----?"
"Alas, venerable father!" said I, "that was indeed the scene of my most
horrible crimes. Is it possible that, in your eyes also, I have appeared
a liar and hypocrite?"
"Truly," said the Prior, "now that I speak with, and see you, I am
forced to believe that your repentance and self-inflicted sufferings
have been sincere. Still there are difficulties, which I am wholly
unable to clear up.
"Soon after your flight from the _residenz_ of the Prince von
Rosenthurm, and after the monk, with whom Cyrillus had confounded you,
had, as if by miracle, escaped, it was proved by the discovery of
letters, and other concomitant testimony, that the Count Victorin,
disguised as a monk, had been at the Baron's castle, and must have been
the perpetrator of the crimes charged against you. Reinhold, his old
steward, indeed, vehemently disputed this notion. But suddenly
Victorin's _chasseur_ made his appearance, and explained that his master
had lived long concealed in the Thuringian forest; that he had allowed
his beard to grow, and had said that he would take the first opportunity
of providing himself with a Capuchin tunic, which he intended to wear
for at least twelve months, in order to carry on certain adventures.
Finally, he declared, that, after having been for some days absent from
his master, on business, he had, on his return, found him completely
disguised in a monk's dress, at which he was not surprised, as he, the
day before, observed, at some distance, the figure of a Capuchin pilgrim
in the forest, from whom he doubted not that his master had supplied
himself with the masquerade attire. He insisted that he knew the Count
far too well to have been deceived, and, besides, had spoken with him
frequently betwixt the period of that occurrence and his disappearance
from the castle. This deposition of the _chasseur_ completely
invalidated the opinion of Reinhold; but the utter vanishing of the
Count, of whom not a single trace could be found, remained quite
incomprehensible.
"In the _residenz_, the Princess von Rosenthurm started the hypothesis,
that the pretended Herr von Krczinski, from Kwicziczwo, had been really
the Count Victorin; and was the more inclined to this belief, on account
of the resemblance that she had found between this pretender and
Francesco, of whose guilt no one now entertained any doubt. The story of
the Prince's forester, describing a maniac, who had wandered about in
this forest, and afterwards lived in his house, almost sanctioned the
hypothesis. The madman had been recognized as Medardus. Victorin, in
order to possess himself of his tunic, had cast him down into the abyss
below the Devil's Chair. Here, by some chance or other, he had not been
killed in the fall, but only wounded on the head. The pain of his wound,
with hunger and thirst, made him delirious; and he ran about, perhaps
obtaining a morsel of food now and then from some compassionate
countryman, and half clothed with miserable rags, till he was kindly
received into the house of the forester.
"Two things, however, remained here inexplicable, namely, how this
Medardus could have run away to such a distance out of the mountains
without being arrested, and how, even in his lucid intervals, he should
confess to the judges and the physician crimes which he had never
committed. Hereupon some individuals insisted that these lucid intervals
were delusive--that he never had been free from his madness, and that as
there are no limits to the varieties of that malady, it was possible
that he had, by the force of his own perverted imagination, invented all
the circumstances which he related, and that the belief of them was the
one, fixed, and obstinate idea, (the characteristic of insanity,) which
never left him.
"The judge of the criminal court, on the other hand, (whose wisdom was
held in great reverence,) declared that the pretended Herr von Krczinski
was not only no Pole, but also no count, and certainly not the Count
Victorin. Moreover, that the monk assuredly was, and continued mad on
every occasion, on which account the Court had intended that his
sentence should be that of constant imprisonment, in order that he might
be prevented from committing more crimes; but the Prince, who was much
shocked by the calamities brought on the family of the Baron von F----,
changed this decision into that of execution on the scaffold.
"Such is the nature of mankind in this transitory life, that every
impression, however vivid, loses, after a short time, almost all its
influence, and fades away into pale and dusky colours. But now the
notion that Aurelia's fugitive bridegroom had been Count Victorin,
brought the story of the Italian Countess fresh into the remembrance of
every one. Even those who before knew nothing of the matter, were
informed by others who thought there was no longer any need for keeping
the secret, and all agreed in considering it quite natural that the
features of Medardus should resemble those of Victorin, as they had both
been sons of one father.
"The Prince at last determined that no farther attempt should be made to
break the veil of mystery. He wished rather that all these unhappy
involvements, which no one could be found to unravel, should be allowed
to rest, and be forgotten. Only Aurelia----"
"Aurelia!" cried I, with vehemence, "for God's sake, reverend sir, tell
me what has become of Aurelia?"
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