subject to her will and under the complete influence of her charms. She
exclaimed that she herself wished to wait upon her guests, and hastened
into the house to get more wine. There she quickly and surreptitiously
found her way into Violande's chamber, where she rummaged in her
clothes press. In an hour of mutual confidences Violande had shown her
a small phial and told her that this contained a philtre, or love
potion, called "Follow Me." Whoever should drink its contents when
served by the hand of a woman, would inevitably become her slave and
victim, being bound to follow her even to death's door. True, Violande
had added, there was not contained in that potion any of the strong and
dangerous poison denominated Hippomanes, brewed from the liquor
obtained from the frontal excrescence of a first-born foal, but rather
it came from the small bones of a green frog that had been placed upon
an ants' nest and cleanly scraped and gnawed off by these insects,
until ready for occult use. But all the same, Violande had stated, this
preparation was potent enough to turn the heads of a half dozen of
obstreperous men. She herself, Violande said, had obtained the philtre
from a nun whose whilom lover had succumbed to the pest before the
philtre had had time to work, so that she, the nun, had resigned
herself to a convent life, and now Violande had possession of this
sovereign remedy without knowing exactly what to do with it. For she
did not dare to throw it away for fear of the unknown consequences.
This phial Kuengolt now found after some search, and poured its
contents into the jug of wine she carried, and with a beating heart she
hastened outside to her guests. She bade the youths all quaff their
drink inasmuch as she would offer to them a new and sweet spice wine,
and when serving out the contents of the jug she knew how to contrive
matters in such wise that not a drop of the fluid remained. To
accomplish this she had first evenly distributed wine into all the
goblets, and afterwards poured something more into each man's, in every
instance sending an alluring glance into the soul of every swain, so
that the sorcery should have its full effect, as she thought.
But indeed the magical workings of the philtre really consisted in
these impartially and enticingly subdivided glances of her roguish eye,
so that the youths all vied, blind and selfish with passion, to gain
her sole favor, as will always happen when a goal striven for by all in
common lies temptingly there for the boldest and luckiest to achieve.
All the young men without exception participated in this love game,
leaving their partners rudely to themselves, and the latter, feeling
deeply the disgrace and humiliation of being outstripped by Kuengolt,
paled with anger and disappointment, casting their eyes down and vainly
trying to cover their defeat by a whispered conversation amongst
themselves. Even the monk suddenly abandoned a dusky serving maid whom
but a moment before he had embraced tenderly, while the haughty scribe,
the hunchback, with energetic steps crowded out the burgomaster's son
who at that instant held Kuengolt's lovely hand in his own, caressing
it subtly.
But Kuengolt showed no favors to any one in particular. Cold as an
icicle she remained towards each and every one of her young guests, and
like a smooth snake she glided about among them, with head and senses
cool. And when she saw that thus she held them all in the hollow of her
hand, she even attempted to reconcile anew the other women, speaking
pleasantly to them and urging them to return to the table.
Darkness had fallen. The stars glinted high in the heavens, and the
sickle of the new moon stood above the forest, but this gentle light
now was wiped out by the gleaming and wavering flames of a huge St.
John's bonfire that had been lighted up on the summit of a lone hill by
the peasant population, visible from afar.
"Let us all go and look at this bonfire," cried Kuengolt. "The way to
it is short and pleasant through the woods! But we must have it done as
beseems us all--the women and girls first, and the young men in the
rear."
And so it was done. Pitch torches lighted up the path for them, and
song cheered the company.
Violande alone had remained behind as custodian of the house, but more
especially to await the coming of the chief forester. For she, too,
meant to make her catch that day. And she had not long to wait. He came
in the roused mood of a toper, and with his senses only partly under
control. When he saw the tables under the lindens before the house, he
sat down and called for a sleeping draught at Violande's hands.
Without loss of time she went to do his bidding. But she also first
disappeared into her own room to get the small vial containing the love
potion which she meant to serve the man who had scorned her so far.
However, her hasty search for it was fruitless. Neither did she
discover it in Kuengolt's chamber, whither instant suspicion had driven
her. For the truth was that that serving maid who had been carelessly
pushed aside by the monk when Kuengolt had triumphed over her rivals,
had picked it up on the stairs where it had been cast by the haughty
girl.
But Violande lost no time in searching further. Instead she made his
cup all the stronger and sweeter, and then she bent over the man of her
choice while he slowly and rapturously emptied the tankard. Violande
was dressed for the occasion. She wore over her skirt a tunic of pale
gold, the edges and seams picked out in red, and allowing her delicate
white skin to peep forth here and there. Her bosom heaved stormily and
she showed a tenderly caressing humor. Thus she leaned on the table in
close proximity to him.
"Ah indeed, cousin," said the forester, when accidentally he cast a
glance in her direction, "how handsome you look to-night."
At these words she smiled happily and looked full at him with eyes that
spoke eloquently, saying: "Do you indeed like my looks? Well, it has
taken you a long time to find that out. If you only knew for how many
years, in fact, ever since I was a child, I have cherished you in my
heart."
That had a greater effect on the good man than any love potion made of
frog's bones, and he seemed to see before his eyes dim recollections.
Of a pretty girl child he dreamed, and now he saw her before him at his
side, a matured beauty in the full development of her womanly charms,
and it was as if she had come to him from a far distance, bringing to
him unsolicited the splendid gift of her fine person. His generous
heart became entangled with his excited senses, and reshaped and
formulated all sorts of enticing images. Through his hazy brain in its
vinous exaltation there floated a Violande who suddenly had been
metamorphosed into a winsome being that, after all manner of
sufferings, had been offered to his arms as something that to embrace
and call his would not only make herself happy but would likewise
entrust to his care a chaste and loving woman that would render himself
happy once more. The memory of his dead wife paled for the nonce before
this glittering picture.
He seized her hand, fondled her cheeks, and said: "We are not yet old,
dear Cousin Violande! Will you become my wife?"
And since she left her hand in his grasp, and bent nearer to him, this
time, seeing at last the realization of her ambition, actually glowing
with her new-found bliss, he loosened the bridal ring of his wife from
the handle of his dagger where since her death he had worn it, and
placed the trinket on Violande's finger. She thereupon pressed her own
face against the leonine and ruddy countenance of her middle-aged
lover, and the two embraced tenderly and kissed under the whispering
linden trees which were stirred by the night breeze. The shrewd man,
ordinarily of such sound judgment, thought he had discovered the
sovereign blessing of life itself.
At this moment Dietegen returned home, bearing his weapons in his
hand. Since he went towards the house across the greensward, the fond
couple did not hear his approach, and he saw with confusion and
amazement the whole scene. Shamed and reddening, he retired as quietly
as he could, so that they did not notice him, and he went around the
whole house, in order to make his entrance by the back door. But while
still on his way he heard suddenly loud calling and noise as though
someone were in peril and hot dispute. Without a moment's hesitation
Dietegen hurried off in the direction of the hubbub. And soon he found
the same company that had ere now left the house in the happiest humor
in a terrible uproar.
It seemed that the young men, half-crazed by the strong wine and by
jealousy of each other, on their way back from the St. John's bonfire,
being now mingled with the young women, had begun to quarrel among
themselves. From words they had come to daggers drawn, and more than
one was bleeding from serious wounds. But just the very moment of his
arrival he had seen the Ruechenstein scribe furiously attacking the
burgomaster's son, and running him through with his long rapier. The
victim, also with sword in hand, lay prone on the grass and was just
giving up the ghost. The others, unaware of this, had seized each other
by the throats, and the women were shrieking and calling loudly for
help. Only Kuengolt stood there pale as death but watching the horrible
scene with open mouth.
"Kuengolt, what is up here?" asked Dietegen, when he had made her out.
She shuddered at his address, but looked as though relieved. However,
he now vigorously began to interfere, and by dint of rough handling of
some of the worst fire-eaters he soon succeeded in separating the
struggling and cursing mass. Then he pointed to the dead youth on the
ground, and that sobered them even more quickly than his remonstrances.
Then they all stared like mutes upon the dead man and upon the grim
hunchback, who seemed to have lost his wits completely.
In the meanwhile some peasants from the neighborhood as well as the
homecoming gamekeepers from the forestry had appeared on the scene, and
these bound securely the raging Schafuerli, the murderous scribe, and
arrested the remainder of the Ruechensteiners.
And that was a bad morning that now followed. The forester was engaged
to the wicked Violande, and his head buzzed unmercifully. One dead
Ruechensteiner lay in the house, and the rest of them were kept in the
dungeon. Before the noon hour had tolled a delegation from
Ruechenstein, with the burgomaster himself, the father of the slain, at
its head, had arrived in order to inquire carefully into the whole
matter and to demand strict justice and punishment of the guilty.
But already the imprisoned secretary of the Ruechenstein council, the
grim Schafuerli, knowing that his neck was in peril, had made a
deposition in his tower in which he charged responsibility for the
whole bad business upon the women of Seldwyla whom they had met on the
previous day, and more especially upon Kuengolt, whom he accused of
sorcery and black art.
That maid servant who had become disgruntled for a cause mentioned
before had passed on the empty vial that had contained Violande's
philtre, to the monk, and the latter had hastened to put it into the
hands of the scribe, who now used it as a powerful weapon.
To the grave dismay of the Seldwylians the whole matter in the course
of that first day even turned against the forester's daughter and
against his household. Everybody in those days, and not alone in
Seldwyla, firmly believed in sorcery and love potions, and the members
of the Ruechenstein delegation behaved so menacingly and hinted at such
terrible reprisals that the popularity and the respect in which the
forester was held could not prevent the imprisonment of Kuengolt,
especially as he was still severely suffering from his excesses of the
previous day, and felt like one paralyzed.
She instantly made a full confession, being more dead than alive from
terror, and Schafuerli and his boon companions were liberated. And then
the Ruechensteiners made the formal demand to have the girl delivered
up to them for adequate atonement, since she had injured a number of
their townsfolk and caused the death of one of them. This, however, was
not conceded to them, and then the Ruechensteiners departed in an angry
mood, threatening dire reprisals. The body of the burgomaster's son
they took along. But when later on they heard that the Seldwyla
authorities had sentenced the girl but to a twelvemonth's mild
incarceration, the ancient enmity which had slept for a number of years
now reawakened, and it became a perilous adventure for any Seldwylian
to be caught on Ruechenstein soil.
Now the town of Seldwyla counted as a fit penalty for misdeeds which
according to their notions were reckoned among the lighter ones and
which consequently required no severe treatment, not imprisonment
proper but rather the awarding of the culprits to persons that became
responsible for their further conduct. In the custody of such persons
the culprits remained during the length of the sentence, and these
custodians were held to employ them suitably and to feed and shelter
them adequately. This mode of punishment was used most often with women
or youthful persons. Thus, then, Kuengolt, too, was taken to one of the
chambers of the town hall, and there she was to be auctioned off, at
least her services and keep. And before that ceremony she had to submit
to being publicly exhibited there.
The forester, whose sunny humor had altogether disappeared with these
trials, said sighing to Dietegen that it was a hard thing for him to go
to the town hall and watch there in behalf of his daughter, but
somebody surely must be there of her family during these bitter hours.
Then Dietegen said: "I will go in your stead; that is, if I am good
enough for it in your opinion."
His patron shook hands with him. "Yes, do it!" he said, "and I will
thank you for it."
So Dietegen went where some of the councilmen were seated and a few
persons willing to take charge of the prisoner. He had girded his sword
around his loins, and had a manly and rugged air about him.
And when Kuengolt was led inside, white as chalk and deeply chagrined,
and was to stand in front of the table, he swiftly pulled up a chair
and made her sit down in it, he placing himself behind and putting his
hand on the back of it. She had looked up at him surprised, and now
sent him a glance fraught with a painful smile. But he apparently paid
no heed looking straight on over her head, severe of mien.
The first who made a bid for her custody was the town piper, a
drunkard, who had been sent by his poor wife in order to help increase
their receipts a bit. This, she calculated, was all the more to be
expected because Kuengolt would probably receive from her home all
sorts of good things to eat, and these, she considered, they would
secure wholly or in part.
"Do you want to go to the town piper's house?" Dietegen curtly asked
the girl. After attentively regarding the red-nosed and half-drunken
fellow, she said: "No." And the piper, with a blissful smile, remarked
laughing: "Good, that suits me too," and toddled off on shaking legs.
Next an old furrier and capmaker made a bid, since he thought he could
utilize Kuengolt very handily in sewing and making a goodly profit out
of her services. But this man had a large sore on his thigh, and this
he was greasing and plastering with salve all day long, and also a
growth the size of a chicken's egg on the top of his pate, so that
Kuengolt had already been afraid of him when she passed his shop as a
child going to school. When, therefore, Dietegen put the query to her
whether she was willing to go to his house, and the girl decidedly
negatived that, the man went off loudly venting his spleen. He grumbled
and growled like a bear whose honeycomb has been snatched away.
Now a money changer stepped up, one who was notorious both for his
greed and usurious avarice and for his lewdness. But scarcely had that
one leveled his red eyes upon her, and opened his wry mouth for a bid,
when Dietegen motioned him off with a threatening gesture, even without
asking the terrified girl herself.
And now there were left but a few more, decent and respectable
citizens, people against whom nothing could be urged reasonably, and it
was these between whom the final choice and decision lay. The smallest
bid was made by the gravedigger of the cemetery next the town
cathedral, a quiet and good man, who also possessed an excellent wife
and, so he thought, a suitable place where to keep such a prisoner in
safe custody, and who certainly had already had charge of several other
prisoners before.
To this man, then, Kuengolt was given in charge, and was taken at once
to his house which was situated between the cemetery and a side street.
Dietegen went along in order to see how she would be housed. It turned
out that her quarters would be an open, small antechamber of the house
itself, immediately adjoining the graveyard and only separated from it
by an iron fence. There, as it seemed, the sexton was in the habit of
keeping his prisoners during the warm season of the year, while for the
winter he simply admitted them into his own dwelling room, a slender
chain fastening them to the tile stove.
But when Kuengolt found herself in her prison and was separated merely
by a fence from the graves of the dead, moreover saw near by the old
deadhouse filled with skulls and bones, she began to tremble and begged
they would not leave her there all through the night. But the sexton's
wife who was just dragging in a straw mattress and a blanket, and also
hid the sight of the graves by suspending a curtain, answered that this
request could not be listened to, and that her new abode would be
wholesome for her moral welfare and as a means of repenting her sins.
And she could not be shaken in this resolve.
But Dietegen replied: "Be quiet, Kuengolt, for I am not afraid of the
dead or of any spook, and I will come here every night and keep watch
in front of the iron fence until you, too, will no longer fear."
He said this, however, in an aside to her, so that the woman could not
overhear it, and then he left for home. There he found the saddened
forester who had just reached an understanding with Violande that they
would not celebrate their wedding until after Kuengolt's release from
prison and after the scandal created by the occurrence should have had
time to blow over. During all their discussion of the matter Violande
kept still as a mouse, glad that she as the prime author of the whole
mischief should have escaped all the consequences, for the magical
philtre had been hers, as we know.
When the early hours of evening were over and midnight approaching,
Dietegen began to make good his promise. He started unobserved, took
his sword and a flask of choice wine along, and climbed from the high
slope down into the valley and so to town, and there he swung himself
fearlessly over the graveyard wall, strode across the graves
themselves, and at last stood in front of Kuengolt's new abode. She sat
breathlessly and shaking with fright upon her straw mattress, behind
the curtain, and listened with freezing blood to every noise, even the
slightest, that struck her ear. For even before this ghostly hour of
twelve she had undergone several convulsions of dread and unreasoning
fear. In the deadhouse, for instance, a cat had slyly climbed over the
bones, and these had clattered somewhat. Then also the night wind had
moved the bushes growing over the tombs, so that they made a weird
noise, and the iron rooster that served as a weather vane on top of the
church roof had creaked mysteriously, making an awful sound never heard
in daytime. So that the girl was in a frenzy of terror.
When she therefore heard the steps nearing more and more, Kuengolt had
a new fit of fright, and shook like a leaf. But when he stretched his
hands through the iron bars of the fence and pushed back the curtain,
so that the full moon lit up the whole dark space around her, and in a
low voice called her name, she rose quickly, ran in his direction and
stretched out both hands to him.
"Dietegen!" she exclaimed, and burst into tears, the first she had been
able to shed since that ominous day; for until that hour she had lived
as though smitten with paralysis, dazed and benumbed.
Dietegen, however, did not take her hand, but instead handed her the
flask of wine, saying: "Here, take a mouthful! It will do you good."
So she drank, and also ate of the dainty wheaten bread of her father's
house that he had brought along. And by and by her courage was
restored, and when she clearly perceived that he had no mind to
converse any more with her, she retired silently to her couch and cried
without a stop, till at last she sank into a quiet sleep.
But he, the young man, in his narrow youthful ideas and in his
inexperience of real life had made up his mind that she was a being
turned completely to wickedness and evil, and one that was unable to do
right. And he served as her sentinel during this and other nights,
seating himself upon an ancient gravestone leaning against the wall
solely out of regard for her departed mother and because she had saved
his own life.
Kuengolt slept until sunrise, and when she awoke and looked about she
observed that Dietegen had softly stolen away.
Thus one night after another passed, and he faithfully watched and
guarded her, for he indeed held the belief that the place was not
without danger for anyone without a good conscience and shaken with
fear. But each time he brought her something of a relish along, and
often he would ask her what she desired for herself, and he would carry
out her wishes if at all justifiable.
He also came when it rained or stormed, missing not a single night, and
on those nights when, according to the popular superstitions then
universally held, the dead walked and which were considered
particularly perilous to the living, he came all the more promptly.
Kuengolt on her part by and by managed to arrange things so that during
the daytime she had her curtain drawn, in order, as she said, to
conceal herself from the curious who went to the cemetery to spy on
her, but in reality to sleep, for she preferred to remain awake at
night, to keep her faithful sentinel in view all the time, and to
ponder the things that had brought her there, and how he had conducted
himself towards her these last few years. But Dietegen knew nothing of
all this, believing her to be sound asleep.
She felt herself engrossed with a new and unexpected happiness, and
while he diligently kept watch over her during the hours of darkness,
she enjoyed his mere presence, and all her thinking was of him. She had
no slightest suspicion that he judged her so harshly, and was living in
hopes that she could reestablish her claim on him, seeing that he
proved so faithful to her. Her father, however, did not share her
dreams. He visited her at least once every week, and when she on these
occasions nearly always shyly mentioned Dietegen's name, and he marked
that she indeed had again turned to him in her thoughts, he would sigh
and groan in spirit, because while also wishing for a union of those
two, and feeling convinced that his fine foster son alone was able to
again rehabilitate his daughter, it appeared highly improbable to him
that Dietegen would wish to woo a witch that had been punished for her
uncanny doings by his fellow citizens, and as it seemed to him, justly.
In the meantime another caller had put in an appearance with Kuengolt,
no less a person than the secretary of the council of Ruechenstein
himself.
This highly enterprising and venturesome hunchback was unable to forget
the beautiful being on whose account he had committed murder. The blood
coursed through his veins more rapidly than in those of a normally
shaped fellow, and waking or sleeping her image did not lose its hold
on him. His belief was that the image of this witch dwelt in his heart
by virtue of her black art, and that it was shooting along within his
blood vessels as does a frail boat in a powerful storm, all in a
magical way.
The more he reflected the more convinced he became of this, and since
he had daring enough and to spare, he finally made up his mind to seek
alleviation of his tortures from the primal source, the witch herself.
At the Capuchin monastery, where he had first gone for a ghostly cure,
he had failed, and thus one moonless, dark night he started out, across
the mountain and as far as the cemetery where he knew her to be kept a
captive.
Kuengolt heard his approaching steps. Since it was not yet the hour
when Dietegen used to come, and also because these steps did not seem
to be his, she took fright and hid behind the curtain. But Schafuerli
now lighted a candle he had brought along, and thrust his hand with it
through the aperture, searching the dark space with his eager eyes
until he had finally discovered her crouched in a corner.