Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/sevenlegends00kelle
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [Oe] and [oe].
THE CAVIARE SERIES
This series, of which Keller's "Seven Legends" is the opening volume,
will contain books that have become standard in the literatures of
foreign countries.
The title which has been chosen is not intended to convey the
impression that none of the books in the series will make a general
appeal (for it is hoped that some of them will become as well-known in
this country as the standard works of our own literature); but rather
to suggest that they will have characteristics and beauties, which can
be most fully enjoyed by the reader of wide culture and cultivated
taste.
The series will be issued at varying prices, according to number of
pages, and the forthcoming appearance of each new volume will be
announced through the usual medium of the literary periodicals.
The Caviare Series, No. 1
SEVEN LEGENDS
SEVEN LEGENDS
GOTTFRIED KELLER
AUTHORIZED (AND FIRST) TRANSLATION FROM THE 56TH GERMAN EDITION BY
MARTIN WYNESS, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY RICHARD M. MEYER, PROFESSOR OF
GERMAN LITERATURE IN BERLIN UNIVERSITY
GOWANS & GRAY, Ltd.
5 Robert St., Adelphi, London, W.C.
58 Cadogan St., Glasgow
1911
INTRODUCTION
Gottfried Keller, the greatest German narrative writer of recent times,
was born in a suburb of Zurich on 19th July, 1819. The life of this
remarkable man suggests comparisons with novels of development, such as
Goethe taught him to write: from the romantic confusion of youthful
dilettantism he brought himself, by strict self-discipline, to take his
place in everyday social life. Left, together with his mother and
sister, in poverty by a hard-working but unsuccessful father, the child
dreamed away the first years of his development, and the youth was
still a stranger to the world of reality when, with the aid of some
friends in his native place, he went as an art-student to Munich.
There, after a promising start, he sank into hopeless lethargy, which
continued even after his return home. Prudent helpers then took the
half painter, half poet, once more in hand, recognizing that his
deficiency consisted in imperfect education and knowledge of the world.
He went to study at Heidelberg (1848-50), and received an important
stimulus from the well-known literary historian Hettner; thence he
proceeded to Berlin (1850-55), where Varnhagen von Ense, the admirer of
Goethe and husband of the prophetess Rahel, made him welcome. Here the
germs of his most important works awoke within him. He had already, at
an early age, published poems, which showed the influence of the
revolutionary _Tendenzlyrik_; now there appeared the romantic
autobiographical novel "Green Henry" (1854-5) which he afterwards
recast in very characteristic fashion (1879-80). This was followed in
1856 by the first part of the charming, fantastically instructive
tales, "Seldwyla People" (the second part, 1874). In spite of praise
from many competent judges, success did not come immediately. Keller
once more sat at home a dreamer, although now in intellectual
correspondence with the best minds; still, it was a bold resolution
when, in 1861, the writer, who had never followed any definite
avocation, was chosen by his canton as Staatsschreiber, or Secretary
to the Canton, and an important and well remunerated office was
entrusted to an untried man. However, he proved a thorough success, and
felt the acceptance of the post a deliverance from the occupation of
"writing-man" so much despised by the Romantics. He filled this office
for seventeen years (till 1878); a period during which his imaginative
productivity unavoidably slackened. Then when, with the well merited
recognition of the authorities, he had retired into private life, or
had begun to prepare for retiral, there appeared, in addition to a
noble volume of poems, the collection of stories, "Zurich Tales"
(1877), the cycle of stories in novel-form, "The Epigram" (1882), and
the novel, "Martin Salander" (1886), which continued the paedagogic
purpose of his earlier writings in almost too pronounced a fashion.
Meanwhile Keller's reputation had at last been established, a
consummation to which the zealous endeavours of writers and critics,
such as Fr. Th. Vischer, Berthold Auerbach and Theodor Storm, had
contributed in no small degree. His seventieth birthday was celebrated
with affectionate interest. But the writer, who lived with his
eccentric old sister in deadening domestic loneliness, and whom
evenings with good friends in an inn could not compensate for the total
lack of comforts, had early turned old and ailing; although any great
question always found him armed and at his post. He died 15th July,
1890.
None of Gottfried Keller's works seems better suited to secure him
admirers among foreign readers than the charming collection of the
"Seven Legends." True, it offers peculiar difficulties to the
translator, since it afforded Keller an opportunity, such as he met
with nowhere else, of indulging the (for him) convenient fondness for
very individual modes of expression. At the same time, these little,
highly finished works of art imposed a check on his unbounded passion
for fabulizing, and are not so likely to bewilder the foreign reader by
sheer overabundance of invention as, say, "Seldwyla People," or even
the inexhaustible "Green Henry." Yet even they shew his wealth, and
that to an astonishing degree.
In his preface to this little masterpiece of his fiction, Gottfried
Keller very justifiably draws attention to "the traces of an older and
more profane art of fiction" which are to be found in the old Legends.
No doubt their primary purpose was edification; but at the same time
psychological interest in the famous saints had to be gratified, and
mere human curiosity was eager to hear tales of wonder. Very special
interest was devoted to "conversion," that inward process which
transforms a dweller in the "world" into a citizen of the heavenly
city. The history of the conversion of the apostle St. Paul had already
indicated its course, along which, still earlier, among Christ's own
parables, that of the Prodigal Son runs. After long-continued contempt
of the "priestly lie-gends," Herder brought this religious fiction
once more to the light of day; but delight in this popular form of
story-telling was his immediate motive for presenting a few of them in
a modern shape. The Lutheran preacher Kosegarten, however, when he
followed with whole volumes of retold legends, was largely influenced
by interest in their matter. Romanticism went into ecstasies over
their childish tone and their believing spirit, as it had done over
folk-songs and chap-books. Kosegarten's book fell into Keller's hands
in 1854, when he was seeking subjects for his collection of stories
"The Epigram"; but he allowed his scheme of modern legends to drop for
the time being. It was not until 1871, when a publisher asked him for
manuscript, that he returned to his happy thought and speedily put it
into execution. The little volume appeared in 1872, and had a great
success, both with the general public and with the foremost German
critics of the day, such as Ferdinand Kuernberger and Wilhelm Scherer.
Even from this sketch of its origin, the fact emerges that the
"Kulturkampf" mood of those years had little or nothing to do with this
little work, as was readily acknowledged, even by the Liberal Catholics
Kuernberger and Scherer. Keller had absolutely no intention of
caricaturing the Catholic adoration of saints, like Wilhelm Busch, for
example, in his "St. Antony" (1870). On the contrary, when sometimes he
turns the faces of the figures of the Church Legends "to another
quarter of the heavens than that towards which they looked in their
extant forms," this positive confession is the important thing to his
mind; for the great Swiss writer has no more intention of denying a
paedagogic purpose here than anywhere else in his epic work. Gottfried
Keller, like his friends Storm and Heyse, regarded asceticism as a
tendency detrimental to the healthy development of humanity. And with
this conviction he accordingly devoted himself to the conversion of the
converted. Like his Naughty Saint Vitalis, he makes a point of seeking
out the most difficult cases, self-sacrificing devotion even unto
death: Eugenia who flees from worldly success into the rigorous quiet
of the cloister, Vitalis who, in glad self-humiliation, accepts the
disgrace of evil repute, are safely piloted by him into the everyday
contentment of happy wedlock. For this is the author's meaning, that on
this very account they become the more worthy of our honour. Just as he
relates how a beautiful ancient statue of the goddess Juno was fitted
with a golden nimbus and set up as an image of Mary, so he himself now
endeavours to take the nimbus off again, that the pure marble beauty of
simple humanity may be restored once more. It cannot be denied that his
unflinching adherence to this point of view is not maintained without
poking a good deal of fun at piety and asceticism, but it is always
good-tempered and likeable. After all, the principal thing is the
edifying admonition:
Arise! Arise! Shake free thyself
From dumpish, idle sorrow.
Even the Virgin Mary has become above all things an active, warlike,
and resourceful woman, more like Frau Salander in Keller's last novel
than the far-off, heavenly Virgin; and one has the feeling that it is
not without regret that she refrains from the worldly doings of Beatrix
or Bertrade. But highest of all is represented a joyous piety, at once
declaring for and surrendering the world, represented, more
realistically in "Dorothea's Flower-Basket," and more symbolically in
the wonderful "Legend of the Dance," the crown of the collection; for
this last tale contains the writer's own confession veiled in the most
recondite allegory. As the Muses' singing, so splendid and upbuilding
to earlier generations, sounded "dismal, almost defiant and harsh, yet
so wistful and mournful," so, in the heaven of the present day as
Gottfried Keller built it up for himself, the saints' devout hymn of
praise to the laud and honour of the Most Holy Trinity sounds gloomy
and melancholy, even defiant. And Keller retorts to it with his own
song:
To thee, thou wondrous World,
Thou beauty without end,
I also have my vows of love
Upon this parchment penned.
It is this world which is the source of his joys and sorrows. The Devil
is introduced as he is on earth: "A silly devil is the rogue, for he is
cheated in the end!" And just because Keller reconquers this world
whole and entire, full of strange adventures and transformations, for
the earth and human understanding, he revels merrily here, because it
is here, in the luxuriant opulence of his imaginings great and small,
from that Heavenly concerto of the Muses to the nose-pigtails of the
doughty knight. His language plays in a kindly, roguish way with the
human blunders of the saintly beings who take a loving and loveable
human child for a very "Devil's tit-bit," yet find it offered to
themselves as a savoury "pasty." His style ranges from the playful
picture of the rococo angel-minstrels to the serious painting of the
knight riding up to the church with his eight noble sons; and, despite
the difference of his conception of life, his sympathies find something
congenial in Dorothea's Christian heroism. For these reasons, Keller in
this Legendary, most wisely restricted in number, and grouped in most
masterly fashion, has surpassed all those who have ventured on to the
same enticing ground since him. Even Anatole France equals him but
seldom; for Keller has sought to overcome piety with another piety,
with that "world-piety" of which Goethe is our greatest prophet.
RICHARD M. MEYER.
Berlin, 27/1/11.
SEVEN LEGENDS
PREFACE
During his perusal of a number of legends, the author of this little
book was pleased to imagine that, in the bulk of the tales which have
been handed down to us, not only the art of the churchly fabulist, but
also, upon attentive consideration, traces of a more primitive and more
profane love of story-telling, or art of fiction, are perceptible.
As the painter is incited by a fragmentary patch of cloud, an outline
of a mountain, an etched scrap by some forgotten master, to fill a
whole canvas, so the author experienced a desire to reproduce those
broken, elusive images; although it must be owned that in the process
their faces have often been turned to another quarter of the heavens
than that towards which they looked in their extant forms.
The huge mass of material available would have made it possible to spin
the book out to very great length; but it could only hope to be granted
the modest space which it demands if the innocent pleasantry was kept
within very moderate limits.
EUGENIA
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither
shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are
abomination unto the Lord thy God.
Deut. xxii. 5.
When women renounce their ambition of beauty, grace, and womanly charm
in order to distinguish themselves in other directions, it often ends
in their disguising themselves in men's clothes and disappearing from
the scene.
The desire to ape the man often emerges even in the pious legendary
world of early Christianity, and more than one female saint of those
days was impelled by the desire to free herself from the common round
of home and society.
The refined Roman maiden Eugenia offers an example of this kind, with,
it must be owned, the not unusual result, that, reduced to the greatest
extremity by her masculine predilections, she was forced after all to
summon up the resources of her proper sex in order to save herself.
She was the daughter of a Roman gentleman who resided with his family
at Alexandria, a city which swarmed with philosophers and learned men
of every description. Accordingly, Eugenia was very carefully educated
and instructed, and this was so much to her taste that, as soon as ever
she began to grow up, she frequented all schools of philosophers,
grammarians and rhetoricians as a student. In those visits she was
always attended by a body-guard of two good-looking lads of her own
age. They were the sons of two of her father's freedmen, who had been
brought up in her company and made to share in all her studies.
Meanwhile she became the fairest maiden that could be found, and her
youthful companions, who, strangely enough, were both named Hyacinth,
grew likewise to two graceful flowers of youth. Wherever the lovely
rose Eugenia appeared, the two Hyacinths were always to be seen
rustling along on her right hand and her left, or following gracefully
in her train while their mistress maintained a discussion with them as
they followed.
Never were there two better bred companions of a blue-stocking; for
they were never of a different opinion from Eugenia, and they always
kept a shade behind her in learning, so that she was in the right in
every instance, and was never uneasy lest she should say something less
clever than her companions.
All the bookworms of Alexandria composed elegies and epigrams on this
apparition of the Muses, and the good Hyacinths had to inscribe these
verses carefully in golden tablets, and carry them after her.
Every season she became more beautiful and more accomplished, and she
had even begun to stray in the mysterious labyrinths of Neoplatonic
doctrines, when the young proconsul Aquilinus became enamoured of
Eugenia and demanded her of her father to wife. But the latter
entertained such a respect for his daughter that, despite his authority
as a Roman father, he did not venture to make the slightest suggestion
to her, but referred the suitor to her own decision, although no
son-in-law could have been more welcome to him than Aquilinus.
But Eugenia herself had had her eye upon him secretly for many a long
day; for he was the most stately, most illustrious, and most gallant
man in Alexandria, and, what was more, had the reputation of a man of
intelligence and heart.
Yet she received the enamoured consul in complete calm and dignity,
with her parchment rolls about her, and her Hyacinths behind her chair.
The one wore an azure-blue, the other a rose-red, robe, and she herself
one of dazzling white. A stranger would have been uncertain whether he
saw three fair, tender boys, or three fresh, blooming maidens before
him.
Before this tribunal the manly Aquilinus now came in the simple toga of
his rank. He would much rather have uttered his passion in more
intimate and tender fashion; but, when he saw that Eugenia did not
dismiss the young men, he took his seat on a chair facing her, and made
his request for her hand in words which it cost him an effort to make
few and simple, for he kept his eyes fixed immovably upon her, and
beheld her great beauty.
Eugenia smiled imperceptibly, and never even blushed, so tightly had
learning and culture fettered all the finer impulses of ordinary life
in her. Instead, she assumed a serious, profound expression, and made
answer to him, "Thy wish, O Aquilinus, to have me for thy wife, honours
me in a high degree, but is powerless to induce me to an act of
unwisdom; and such it would justly be termed, if we were to follow the
first crude impulse without examining ourselves. The first condition
which I have to demand from a husband, whoever he be, is that he
understand and honour and participate in my intellectual life and aims.
So thou wilt be welcome to me if thou choosest to be often in my
society, and to exercise thyself in emulation with these my young
companions in the investigation of the highest things along with me. By
this means we shall not fail to ascertain whether we are suited for
each other or not, and, after a period of intellectual activity in
common, we shall know each other so as beseems god-created beings who
are meant to walk not in the darkness, but in the light."
To this high-flown demand Aquilinus answered, not without secret
indignation, but still with proud tranquillity, "If I did not know
thee, Eugenia, I would not desire thee for my wife; and, as to myself,
great Rome knows me, as well as this province. If thy learning does not
suffice to recognize what I am by this time, I fear it will never
suffice. Besides, I did not come here to go to school again, but to
find a helpmeet; and, as for these two children, my first request, if
thou gavest me thy hand, would be that thou wouldest let them go and
restore them to their parents at last, that they might help them and be
of use to them. Now I entreat thee, give me thy decision, not as a
person of learning, but as a woman of flesh and blood!"
This time the fair she-philosopher had indeed turned red, red as a
carnation, and said with fast-beating heart, "My answer is soon given,
for I gather from thy words that thou dost not love me, Aquilinus. That
might be a matter of indifference to me, were it not an outrage for the
daughter of a noble Roman to be lied to!"
"I never lie!" said Aquilinus coldly. "Farewell!"
Eugenia turned her back without returning his farewell, and Aquilinus
walked slowly out of the house to his own abode. She tried to take up
her books as if nothing had happened; but the letters grew blurred
before her eyes, and the two Hyacinths had to read to her while she,
full of hot indignation, wandered with her thoughts elsewhere.
For, although up to that day she had regarded the consul as the only
one among all her suitors whom she might have taken for a husband,
supposing she had been so inclined, he was now become a stone of
stumbling which she could not get over.
Aquilinus for his part attended calmly to his affairs of state, and
sighed in secret over his strange folly, which would not suffer him to
forget the pedantic beauty.
Almost two years passed, during which Eugenia became, if possible, more
and more notable and a positively brilliant personage, while the two
Hyacinths were now two sturdy rustic figures with growing beards.
Although people everywhere began to take notice of this strange
attachment, and, instead of the admiring epigrams, others in a more
satiric vein began to appear, still she could not bring herself to part
with her body-guard; for Aquilinus, who had presumed to order her to do
so, was still there. He went quietly on his own way, and appeared to
concern himself no more about her; but he looked at no other woman, and
no other wooing was heard of, so that he also came in for censure,
because, being so high an official, he remained unmarried.
Eugenia refrained all the more obstinately from offering any outward
sign of reconciliation by dismissing her obnoxious companions. Besides,
she was charmed to set ordinary custom and public opinion at defiance
and be responsible to herself alone, and to preserve the consciousness
of a pure life in circumstances which would have been perilous and
impossible for any other woman.
Such eccentricities were in the air just at that time.
All the time Eugenia felt herself anything but well and happy. Her
well-trained servitors must needs philosophize through heaven and earth
and hell, only to be suddenly interrupted and forced to wander about in
the country with her for hours together without being favoured with a
single word. One day she was seized with the desire to make an
excursion to a country-seat. She herself drove the carriage, and was in
an amiable mood, for it was a bright spring day, and the air was full
of balmy fragrance. The Hyacinths were delighted at her good humour. So
they made their way through a country suburb where the Christians were
permitted to hold their worship. They were in the act of celebrating
Sunday; from the chapel of a monastery came the tones of a devout hymn.
Eugenia checked her horses to listen, and caught the words of the
psalm, "Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks: so longeth my soul
after thee, O God. My soul is athirst for the living God."
At the sound of these words, sung by humble pious lips, her artificial
life was made simple at last; her heart was touched, and seemed to
realize what it desired; and slowly, without a word, she went on her
way to the country-house. There she secretly put on men's clothes,
signed to the two Hyacinths to come with her, and left the house
unobserved by the menials. She went back to the convent, knocked at the
door, and presented herself and her companions to the abbot as three
young men who desired to be received into the convent that they might
bid farewell to the world and live for eternity. Thanks to her good
training, she was able to answer the abbot's searching questions so
cleverly that he received all three, whom he could not help taking for
refined and distinguished persons, into the convent, and permitted them
to assume the monastic habit.
Eugenia made a beautiful, almost angelic, monk, and was called Brother
Eugenius, while the two Hyacinths found themselves transformed for
better or worse into monks; for they were never even consulted, and
they had long been accustomed only to live according to the will of
their female paragon. Still, they did not find the monkish life amiss;
they enjoyed incomparably more peaceful days, did not require to study
any more, and found no difficulty in surrendering themselves entirely
to a passive obedience.
Brother Eugenius, on the other hand, did not remain idle, but became a
notable monk, his visage white as marble, but with glowing eyes and the
presence of an archangel. He converted many heathen, tended the sick
and destitute, became profound in the Scriptures, preached in a golden
bell-like voice, and on the abbot's death was actually chosen to be his
successor. So now the tender Eugenia became abbot over seventy good
monks, great and small.
During the time that she and her companions were thus mysteriously
vanished and were nowhere to be found, her father had made enquiries at
an oracle as to what had become of his daughter, and it answered that
Eugenia had been taken away by the gods and placed among the stars. For
the priests utilized the event to contrive a miracle as a counterblast
to the Christians, who all the time had the bird safely caged. They
went so far as to point out a star in the firmament with two smaller
stars adjacent as the new constellation, and the Alexandrians stood in
the streets and on their house-tops to gaze at it, while many, who had
formerly seen her going in and out, recalled her beauty, became
enamoured of her memory, and looked up with moist eyes to the star,
which swam placidly in the purple sky.
Aquilinus too looked up; but he shook his head and was not altogether
satisfied about the business. The father of the vanished maiden was all
the more obstinate in his credence, felt himself not a little exalted,
and contrived, with the support of the priests, to have a statue
erected and divine honours decreed to Eugenia. Aquilinus, from whom
official sanction had to be obtained, granted it subject to the
condition that the image should be made an exact likeness of the
ravished one. That was easily accomplished, as there was quite a
collection of busts and portraits of her in existence, and so her
statue in marble was set up in the fore-court of the temple of Minerva,
and challenged the inspection of gods and mortals, for, in spite of
being a speaking likeness, it was an ideal work in features, pose, and
drapery.
When this news was discussed among the seventy monks of the convent,
they were bitterly chagrined at the trump card played by the heathen,
as well as at the erection of a new idol and the shameless worship of a
mortal woman. Their most violent objurgations were showered upon the
woman herself as a runagate and juggling impostor, and they made a most
unaccustomed noise during their midday meal. The Hyacinths, who had
become two good little priestlings and had their abbot's secret
concealed in their hearts, glanced significantly towards him, but he
signed to them to keep silence, and suffered the outcry and abuse to
pass as a penance for his former heathenish sinful mind.
But when that night was half run, Eugenia rose from her couch, took a
heavy hammer, and went softly out of the convent to find the statue and
break it in pieces. She easily found her way to the quarter of the
city, all glistening with marble, where the temples and public
buildings were situated, and where she had passed her youth. Not a soul
stirred in the silent world of marble. Just as the female monk ascended
the steps to the temple, the moon rose above the shadows of the
city, and cast her beams as bright as day among the pillars of the
fore-court. There Eugenia saw her statue, white as new-fallen snow,
standing in wonderful grace and beauty, the finely-folded draperies
chastely drawn over the shoulders, and looking straight forward with
rapt eye and gently-smiling mouth.
Full of curiosity the Christian advanced towards it, the hammer
uplifted in her hand; but a sweet shudder went through her heart when
she obtained a clear view of the statue. She let the hammer sink, and
breathlessly fed her gaze on the vision of her own former existence. A
bitter regret took possession of her, a feeling as if she had been
thrust out of a fairer world and was now wandering an unhappy shade in
the wilderness. For although the image was elevated to the ideal, still
the very ideal represented Eugenia's genuine inner nature, which had
only been obscured by her pedantry, and it was a nobler emotion than
vanity which now led her to recognize her better self by the magical
moonlight. She suddenly felt as if she had played the wrong card--to
use a modern expression; for, of course, there were no cards in those
days.
Suddenly the quick step of a man was heard. Eugenia hid herself
involuntarily in the shadow of a pillar, and saw the tall form of
Aquilinus approaching. She saw how he stationed himself before the
statue, gazed long upon it, and finally flung his arm about its neck to
imprint a light kiss upon the marble lips. Then he wrapped himself in
his mantle and slowly departed, more than once turning round to gaze at
the gleaming image. Eugenia trembled so violently that she could feel
her agitation. Full of wrath and violence, she gathered herself
together and once again advanced toward the statue with uplifted hammer
to make an end of the sinful maumet; but, instead of shattering the
beauteous head, she burst into tears as she too imprinted a kiss upon
its lips, then hastened away, for she could hear the steps of the
night-watch. With heaving bosom, she slipped into her cell, and slept
none that night until the sun arose, when, absenting herself from early
prayers, she dreamt in rapid succession of things which had nothing in
common with her devotions.
The monks respected their abbot's sleep as the result of spiritual
vigils. But at last they were obliged to interrupt Eugenia's slumbers,
as there was important business for her to attend to. A widow of rank,
who professed to be lying sick and in need of Christian aid, had sent
requesting the ghostly comfort and counsel of abbot Eugenius, whose
deeds and person she had long revered. The monks did not wish to let
slip this conquest, which would help the fame of their church, and they
wakened Eugenia. Half dazed, with handsomely reddened cheeks, such as
she had not been seen with for many a day, she set out, her thoughts in
her morning dreams and the pillars of the midnight temple rather than
in the business before her. She entered the heathen lady's house, and
was conducted to her room and left alone with her. A beautiful woman,
not yet thirty years old, was lying stretched upon a couch; but, so far
from being sick and contrite, she was full of assurance and vitality.
She could scarcely behave herself with bare quietness and modesty until
the supposed monk, at her direction, had taken his seat close beside
her; then she caught both his white hands, pressed her brow upon them,
and covered them with kisses. Eugenia, who, absorbed in far other
thoughts, had not observed the woman's unsaintly appearance, and had
taken her behaviour for humility and pious devotion, let her have her
way; and the heathen, thus encouraged, flung her arms about Eugenia's
neck, imagining that she was embracing the handsomest of young monks.
In short, before he was aware, he found himself clasped tight by the
amorous creature, and felt his mouth the target for a storm of
passionate kisses. Completely dumbfounded, Eugenia awoke at last from
her reverie; and even then it was some minutes before she could
disengage herself from that wild embrace and rise to her feet.
But at the same instant the heathen Satan's tongue began to wag. In a
storm of words the she-devil declared her love and desire to the
indignant abbot, and sought by all manner of means to impress upon him
that it was the duty of his youth and loveliness to assuage her
desires, and that he was there for no other purpose. She did not fail
to accompany her words with fresh assaults and tender allurements, so
that Eugenia was scarcely able to defend herself. At last she rallied
herself in indignation, and with flaming eyes read the shameless woman
such a lesson and so answered her with such vigorous denunciations as
only a monk has at command, that the latter recognized that her wicked
intentions had failed, changed her tone in a twinkling, and took the
way of escape which was once taken by Potiphar's wife, and has been
taken a hundred and a thousand times since. She sprang like a tigress
on Eugenia, clasped her again with arms like steel, pulled her down to
her upon the couch, and at the same time set up such an outcry that her
maids came running into the room from all quarters.
"Help! Help!" she screamed. "This man will force me!" And at the same
time she released Eugenia, who got to her feet breathless, confused and
horrified.
The women who had rushed to the rescue straightway screamed more
desperately than their mistress, hastened hither and thither, and
called for male assistance. Eugenia could not utter a word for horror;
but made her escape from the house full of shame and disgust, followed
by the outcries and curses of the infuriated rabble.
The fiendish widow lost no time in proceeding at once with a goodly
following to the consul Aquilinus, and accusing the monk of the most
disgraceful crime, to wit that he had come hypocritically to her house,
first of all to molest her with efforts for her conversion, and, when
these failed, to rob her of her honour by violence. Since all her
following testified to the truth of her assertion, the indignant
Aquilinus immediately caused the convent to be surrounded by troops,
and the abbot along with his monks to be brought before him for trial.
"Is this what you do, you low hypocrites?" he said in severe tones.
"Are you so high-fed, you who are barely tolerated, that you must needs
assault our women-folk, and prowl about like ravening wolves? Did your
Master, whom I honour more than I do you liars, teach or command you
such things? Not at all! You are a gang, a horde of wretches, who
assume a name in public that you may abandon yourselves to corruption
in secret. Defend yourselves against the charge, if you can!"
The infamous widow then repeated her lying tale, interrupted by
hypocritical sighs and tears. When she had finished and had wrapped
herself again demurely in her veil, the monks glanced fearfully at one
another and at their abbot, of whose virtue they had no doubt, and they
raised their voices with one accord to repel the false accusation. But
not only the numerous menials of the lying woman, but also several
neighbours and passers-by, who had seen the abbot leaving the house
full of shame and confusion and who had thereupon taken him for guilty,
now came forward and testified one after the other with loud voices to
the fact of the crime, so that the poor monks were shouted down ten
times over.
Now they glanced once more, this time full of doubt, at their abbot,
and his very youth suddenly appeared suspicious to the greybeards among
them. They exclaimed that, if he were guilty, God's judgement would not
be backward, no more than they were backward in abandoning him there
and then to the secular arm!
The eyes of all were now directed upon Eugenia, who stood forsaken amid
the throng. She had been lying weeping in her cell when she was
arrested with the monks, and had stood all that time, her eyes downcast
and her cowl drawn deep down over her head, and felt herself in a most
awkward predicament. For, if she preserved the secret of her family and
sex, she would succumb to this false testimony, while, if she revealed
it, the storm would break out against the convent more furiously than
ever, and she would devote it to destruction, since a convent which had
a beautiful young woman for abbot was bound to become the butt of the
most unholy suspicion and mockery on the part of the malicious heathen
world. She would not have experienced this timidity and indecision had
she still had a pure heart, according to monkish notions; but the
events of the previous night had already made a division in her mind,
and her unfortunate encounter with the wicked woman had only increased
her wavering, so that she no longer possessed the courage to step
forward with determination and bring about a miracle.
Yet, when Aquilinus called upon her to speak, she remembered his former
tenderness for her, and, as she had confidence in him, she hit upon a
way of escape. In gentle and modest tones she said that she was not
guilty and would prove it to the consul, if she might speak with him
alone. The sound of her voice moved Aquilinus, though he knew not why,
and he acceded to her request to speak with him in private. He
accordingly had her conducted into his house, and repaired alone with
her into a room. Then Eugenia fixed her eyes upon him, threw back her
cowl and said, "I am Eugenia, whom you once desired for your wife."
He recognized her at once, and was convinced that it was she; but at
the same time a great anger and a burning jealousy rose up within his
breast to think that the lost one so suddenly recovered should make her
appearance as a woman who had been living all that time in secrecy with
seventy monks. He therefore restrained himself with a violent effort
and scrutinized her narrowly, while he made as if he did not believe
her assertion in the slightest, and said, "You certainly do seem rather
like that infatuated young woman. But that does not concern me; I am
much more anxious to know what you did to the widow!"
Eugenia shyly and anxiously told all that had passed, and from the
whole tone of her story Aquilinus perceived the falsehood and malice of
the accusation, yet he answered with apparent indifference, "But if you
are Eugenia, then how did you contrive to become a monk? What was your
intention, and how was it possible?"
At these words, Eugenia blushed and looked on the ground in
embarrassment. Still, it seemed to her not so unpleasant after all to
be there, and to be talking once again with a good old acquaintance
about herself and her adventures. So she lost no time, but told in
unstudied words all that had happened to her since her disappearance,
except, strangely enough, that she never uttered a syllable about the
two Hyacinths. Her hearer found the story not unsatisfactory, only
every minute made it harder for him to conceal his appreciation of the
recovered fair one. But nevertheless he controlled himself, and
determined to see the matter out to the end and to ascertain from her
subsequent behaviour whether he had the old Eugenia before him, with
her chaste and pure manners.
So he said, "All that is a well told story: still, in spite of her
eccentricities, I do not consider that the maiden you pretend to be was
capable of such very astonishing adventures. At least, the real Eugenia
would certainly have preferred to become a nun. For how in the world
can a monk's cowl and living among seventy monks be a merit and
salvation for any woman, even the most learned and pious? No, I still
hold to my opinion that you are a smooth-faced beardless fellow of an
impostor, whom I don't trust in the slightest! Besides, Eugenia has
been proclaimed as deified and dwelling among the stars; her image
stands where it was dedicated in the temple, and it will go hard enough
with you if you persist in your slanderous assertion."
"A certain man kissed that image last night," retorted Eugenia in a low
voice, casting a curious look at the disconcerted Aquilinus, who gazed
upon her as upon one inspired with superhuman wisdom. "How can the same
man torture the original?"
But he mastered his confusion, appeared not to hear her words, and
continued, coldly and severely, "In one word, for the honour of the
poor Christian monks, who appear to me to be innocent, I cannot and
will not believe that you are a woman. Prepare yourself for judgement,
for your statements have not satisfied me."
At that Eugenia exclaimed, "Then God help me!" and, rending her monk's
frock in twain, pale as a white rose, she collapsed in shame and
despair. But Aquilinus caught her in his arms, pressed her to his
heart, and wrapped her in his mantle, while his tears fell upon her
lovely head; for he was convinced that she was an honourable woman. He
carried her into the next room, where there was a richly furnished
guest-bed, laid her gently down in it and covered her to the chin with
purple coverlets. Then he kissed her on the lips, perhaps three or four
times, went out, and locked the door securely. Next he picked up the
monk's frock, which lay still warm on the floor, and betook himself
again to the waiting throng outside, and addressed them thus, "These
are strange happenings! You monks are innocent and may go to your
convent. Your abbot was a demon who would have ruined you or seduced
you. Here! Take his frock with you and hang it somewhere for a
memorial; for, after he had changed his form in the oddest fashion
before my eyes, he dissolved into nothing before these same eyes, and
vanished without a trace. As for this woman of whom the demon made use
in order to ruin you, she is under suspicion of witchcraft and must be
put in prison. Now begone all of you to your homes, and behave
yourselves!"
All were astounded at this allocution, and gazed fearfully at the
demon's garment. The widow turned pale and veiled her face, and by so
doing made ample betrayal of her bad conscience. The good monks
rejoiced over their victory and retired most thankfully with the empty
husk, little suspecting what a sweet kernel had been hidden within it.
The widow was cast into prison, and Aquilinus summoned his most
faithful servant and went through the city, sought out merchants, and
purchased a perfect load of the most expensive female attire, which the
slave had to convey to the house as secretly and quickly as possible.
Softly the consul slipped into the chamber where Eugenia lay, seated
himself on the edge of her bed, and saw that she was sleeping quite
contentedly, like one recovering from difficulties undergone. He could
not help laughing at the black pile of her shorn monk's head, and
passed a gentle hand over the thick, short hair. Thereupon she awoke
and opened her eyes.
"Will you be my wife now, at last?" he enquired gently; whereupon she
said neither Yes nor No, but shivered a little beneath the purple
coverlets in which she lay wrapped.
Then Aquilinus brought in all the clothes and ornaments that a fine
lady required in those days to array herself from head to foot, and
left her.
After sundown that same day, he took her with him, attended only by his
faithful servant, to one of his country-houses, which lay in a secluded
and charming situation amid the shade of thick trees.
In the country-house, the pair now celebrated their nuptials with the
utmost privacy; and, for as long as it had been until they found each
other again, still no time seemed to have been lost, rather they felt
the most hearty thankfulness for the good fortune which had preserved
them for each other. Aquilinus devoted the days to his official
business, and at night drove as fast as horses could take him home to
his wife. Only now and again on unkindly, stormy, wet days, he loved to
hasten back earlier than he was expected to the country-house to cheer
Eugenia.
Without making many words about it, she now devoted herself to the
study of connubial love and fidelity, with the same thoroughness and
perseverance which she had formerly spent upon philosophy and Christian
discipline. But, when her hair had grown again to its proper length,
Aquilinus, having devised a cunning fable, took his spouse at last back
to Alexandria, brought her to her astonished parents, and celebrated a
brilliant wedding.
Her father was certainly surprised to find his daughter again, not as
an immortal goddess and a heavenly constellation, but as a beloved,
earthly, wedded wife, and it was with regret that he saw the
consecrated statue removed from the temple; but, to his praise, his
disappointment was overcome by his fondness for his living daughter,
who now proved fairer and more lovable than ever. The marble statue
Aquilinus set in the finest room in his house; but he refrained from
kissing it again, now that he had the warm, living original to his
hand.
After Eugenia had investigated the nature of marriage to her
satisfaction, she applied her experience to converting her spouse to
Christianity, which she still continued to profess; and she did not
rest until Aquilinus had made public acknowledgement of his adhesion to
her faith. The legend goes on to relate how the whole family returned
to Rome about the time when that enemy of the Christians, Valerian,
came to the throne; and how, during the persecutions which then broke
out, Eugenia added to her fame that of a famous heroine of the faith
and martyr, and then only made full manifestation of her great strength
of soul.
Her influence over Aquilinus had become so great that she was able to
bring the two clerics, the Hyacinths, with her from Alexandria to Rome,
where they also won the martyr's crown at the same time as she. Her
intercession is said to be specially efficacious for dull school-girls
who are backward in their studies.
THE VIRGIN AND THE DEVIL
Friend! watch and look about, the Devil is always prowling;
If thou triest a bout with him, thou'lt get a thorough towelling.
Angelus Silesius, _Cherub. Wandersmann_, Book vi. 206.
There was a certain Count Gebizo, who possessed a wondrously beautiful
wife, a magnificent castle and town, and so many valuable possessions
that he was esteemed one of the richest and most fortunate nobles in
the country. He seemed to be aware of and thankful for his reputation,
for he not only kept a splendid and hospitable board, at which his fair
and virtuous wife warmed the hearts of his guests like a sun, but he
also practised Christian beneficence in the most comprehensive fashion.
He founded and endowed convents and hospitals, beautified churches and
chapels, and on every high-day gave clothing, meat and drink to a great
number, often hundreds, of poor; and several dozen must needs be seen
every day, almost every hour, about his courtyard, regaling themselves
and praising him, otherwise his dwelling, fair as it was, would have
seemed to him deserted.
But by such unbounded liberality even the greatest wealth is exhausted,
and so it came to pass that the Count was obliged to mortgage all his
properties one after the other in order to indulge his passion for
grandiose beneficence; and the more he got into debt the more eagerly
he redoubled his almsgiving and feasts to the poor, hoping thereby, as
he imagined, to turn the blessing of Heaven once more in his favour. In
the end he impoverished himself entirely; his castle became deserted
and ruinous; ineffective and foolish foundations and deeds of gift,
which from force of habit he could not desist from writing, brought him
nothing but ridicule; and any tattered beggar, whom he might now and
again lure to his castle, threw the meagre pittance at his benefactor's
feet, and took himself off with scornful words of abuse.
One thing only was left to him unimpaired, the beauty of his wife
Bertrade; nay, the barer things looked in the house, the more brilliant
did her beauty seem to grow. She increased too in grace, love and
goodness the poorer Gebizo became, so that all the blessings of Heaven
seemed to be comprehended in his wife, and thousands of men envied the
Count this one treasure which still remained to him. He alone was blind
to all this, and the more the fair Bertrade exerted herself to cheer
him and sweeten his poverty the less he prized that jewel, and he fell
into a bitter and obstinate dejection and hid himself from the world.
One day, when a glorious Easter-morning dawned, a day on which he had
once been wont to see joyous throngs making pilgrimage to his castle,
he felt so ashamed of his downfall that he had not even heart to go to
church, and was perplexed how to pass the bright sunny feast-days. In
vain his wife, with pearly tears and smiling lips, begged him not to
vex himself, but come with her to church undismayed; he tore himself
away crossly, and took himself off to hide in the woods until Easter
were over.
Up hill and down dale he wandered, until he came to a primeval
wilderness, where monstrous bearded firs surrounded a lake whose depths
reflected the gloomy trees in all their length so that everything
looked dismal and black. The ground about the lake was thickly carpeted
with strange long-fringed moss, in which no footfall could be heard.
Here Gebizo sat himself down and complained to God of his wretched ill
fortune, which no longer enabled him to still his own hunger
sufficiently, his who had once gladly satisfied thousands, and, worst
of all, which recompensed his efforts with the scorn and ingratitude of
the world.