It was a Christmas eve in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and
through the streets of Nuremberg came drifting a feathery snow that
heaped itself in fantastic patterns on the projecting windows and
fretted stone balconies of the quaint and crowded houses. It was not an
honest and single-minded snow-storm, such as would seek to shroud the
whole city in its delicate white mantle, but rather a tricksy and
capricious sprite, that neglected one spot to hurl itself with wanton
violence on another. Borne on the breath of a keen and shifting wind, it
came tossing gleefully full in the face of a solitary artisan who,
wrapped in a heavy cloak, was making the best of his way homeward. Truly
it was not a pleasant night to be abroad, with the snow-drifts dancing
in your eyes like a million of tiny arrow-points, and the sharp wind
cutting like a knife; and the wayfarer was consoling himself for his
present discomfort by picturing the warm fireside and the hot supper
that awaited him at home, when his cheerful dreams were broken by a
sharp cry that seemed to come from under his very feet.
Startled, and not a little alarmed, he checked his rapid walk and
listened. There was no mistaking the sound: it was neither imp nor
fairy, but a real child, from whose little lungs came forth that wail at
once pitiful and querulous. As he heard it, Peter Burkgmäier's kindly
heart flew with one rapid bound to the cradle at home where slumbered
his own infant daughter, and, hastily lowering his lantern, he searched
under the dark archway whence the cry had come. There, sheltered by the
wall and wrapped in a ragged cloak, was a baby boy, perhaps between two
and three years old, but so tiny and emaciated as to seem hardly half
that age. When the lantern flickered in his face he gave a frightened
sob, and then lay quiet and exhausted in the strong arms that held him.
"Poor little wretch!" said the man. "Abandoned on Christmas eve to die
in the snow!" And wrapping the child more closely in his own mantle, he
hurried on until he reached his home, from whose latticed panes shone
forth a cheerful stream of light. His wife, with her baby on her breast,
met him at the door, and stared with a not unnatural amazement as her
husband unrolled his cloak and showed her the boy, who, blinking
painfully at the sudden light, tried to struggle down from his arms.
"See, Lisbeth!" he said, "I have found you a Christmas present where I
least expected one--an unhappy baby left in the streets to die of cold
and hunger."
His wife laid her own infant in the cradle and gazed alternately at her
husband and at the child he carried. She was at all times slow to
receive impressions, and slower yet to put her thoughts into words. When
she spoke, it was without apparent emotion of any kind. "What are you
going to do with him, Peter?" she said.
"What am I going to do with him?" was the reply. "I am going to feed and
clothe and shelter him, and make an honest man out of him, please God.
It cannot be that you would refuse the poor child a home?"
Lisbeth made no answer. She was a large, fair, sleepy-eyed woman, who
had been accounted a beauty in her day. A model wife, too, people said;
neat in dress, quiet of tongue, her conduct staid, her whole thoughts
centred in her household. She now took the boy, noting with a woman's
eye his coarse and ragged clothing, and stood him on his unsteady little
feet. A faint expression of disgust rippled over her smooth, unthinking
face.
"He is a humpback," she said, slowly.
Her husband started to his feet. In all ages physical deformity has been
a thing repulsive to our eyes; but at this early day it was regarded
with unmixed horror and aversion, and was too often considered as the
index of a crooked mind within. Peter Burkgmäier, tall and erect, with a
frame of iron and sinews of steel, as became a master stone-mason, stood
gazing at the poor little atom of misshapen humanity who tottered over
the polished wooden floor. The spinal column was sadly bent, and from
between the humped shoulders the pale face peered with an old, uncanny
look. Yet the boy was not otherwise ugly. His forehead was broad and
smooth, and his dark blue eyes were well and deeply set. The artisan
watched him for a minute in painful silence, then turned to his wife and
took her passive hand in his.
"Lisbeth," he said, with grave kindness, "I know that I am asking a
great deal of you when I beg you to take this child under our roof. He
will be to you much care and trouble, and may never find his way into
your heart. At any other time, believe me, I would not put this burden
on your shoulders. But it is Christmas eve, and were I to refuse a
shelter to this helpless baby I would feel like one of those who had no
room within their inns for the Holy Child. Dear wife, will you not
receive him for love of me and of God, and let him share with little
Kala in your care?"
Lisbeth's only reply was one characteristic of the woman. She was moved
by her husband's appeal, against what she considered her better
judgment; and without a single word she picked up the boy from the floor
and laid him in the cradle by the side of her own little daughter. Then,
with a smile--and her smiles came but rarely--she proceeded to carry off
Peter's wet cloak and to bring in his supper. So with this mute assent
the matter was settled, and the deformed child was received into the
stone-mason's family.
And in a different way he became the source of much gratification to
both husband and wife. The first regarded him with real kindness and an
almost fatherly affection, for the boy soon began to manifest a quick
intelligence and a winning gentleness that might readily have found
their way into a harder heart. Lisbeth, too, had her reward; for it was
sweet to her soul to hear her neighbors say, as they stopped to watch
the two children playing in the doorway: "Ah! Lisbeth, it is not many a
woman who would take the care you do of a wretched little humpback like
that;" or, "It was a lucky chance for the poor child that threw him
into such hands as yours, Mistress Burkgmäier;" or, "Did ever little
Kala look so fair and straight as when she had that crooked boy by her
side?"
And did not the good pastor from the Frauenkirche say to her, with tears
starting in his gentle eyes: "God will surely reward you for your
kindness to this helpless little one?" Nay, better yet, did not the
Stadtholder's lady lean out from her beautiful carriage, and say before
three of the neighbors, who were standing by and heard every word: "You
are a good woman, Mistress Burkgmäier, to take the same care of this
miserable child as of your own pretty little daughter"?--which was
something to be really proud of; for, whereas it was the obvious duty of
a priest to admire a virtuous act, it was not often that a noble lady
deigned thus to express her approbation.
Yes, Lisbeth felt, as she listened serenely to all this praise--surely
so well merited--that there was some compensation in the world for such
charitable deeds as hers, even when they involved a fair amount of
sacrifice. And little Gabriel, before whom many of these remarks were
uttered, pondered over them in secret, and gradually evolved three facts
from the curious puzzle of his life--first, that he did not really
belong to what seemed to be his home; second, that he was not loved in
it as was Kala; third, that Kala was pretty and he was ugly. So with
these three melancholy scraps of knowledge the poor child began his
earthly education.
And Kala was very pretty. Tall and strong-limbed, with her mother's
beautiful hair and skin, and with her mother's clear, meaningless blue
eyes, the little girl attracted attention wherever she was seen. No
better foil to her vigorous young beauty could have been found than the
pale, misshapen boy whom all the world called ugly. The children played
together under Lisbeth's watchful eye, and Gabriel in all things yielded
to his companion's imperious will, so that peace reigned ever over their
sports. But when Sigmund Wahnschaffe, the son of the bronze-worker in
the neighboring street, joined them, then Kala would have no more of
Gabriel's company. For Sigmund was strong as a young Hercules and
surpassed all the other lads in their boyish games. When he would play
with her, Kala turned her back ungratefully upon the patient companion
of her idler moments, who was fain to watch in silence the pleasures he
might not share.
Yet from Sigmund she met no easy compliance with her wishes. His will
was a law not to be disputed, and once, when she had ventured to assert
herself in rebellious fashion, he promptly maintained his precedence by
pushing her into the mud. Kala began to cry, and, like a flash, Gabriel,
in a storm of rage, flung himself upon the older boy, only to be shaken
off as a feather into the same muddy gutter. It was over in a minute,
nor would Sigmund deign to further punish the little humpback who had
been ridiculous enough to attack him. Serenely unmoved he strolled away,
while Kala and Gabriel went sadly home together, to be both well scolded
for the ruin of their clothes and sent supperless to bed; Lisbeth
priding herself, above all things, on the strictly impartial character
of her retributive justice.
But Gabriel had at least one pastime which could be shared with none,
and which bade fair to recompense him for all the childish sports he was
denied. With a small block of wood and a few simple tools his skilful
fingers wrought such wonders that Kala and Sigmund, and the very
children who hooted at him in the street, could not withhold their
admiration,--sometimes a brooding dove with pretty, ruffled plumage;
sometimes the head and curving horns of a mountain chamois, instinct
with graceful life; sometimes a group of snails, each tiny spiral
reproduced with loving accuracy in the hard grained wood. To Peter
Burkgmäier these evidences of a talent then in such high repute gave
most unbounded satisfaction. His own trade was far too severe for the
boy's frail strength, but wood-carving was fully as profitable, and
might lead to wealth and fame. Had not Veit Stoss, of whose genius
Nuremberg felt justly proud, already finished his wonderful group of
angels saluting the Virgin, which hung from the roof of St. Lorenz? With
such an example before him, what might not the boy hope to achieve
through talent and persevering labor? And Gabriel felt his own heart
burn as he looked with wistful eyes upon that masterpiece of rare and
delicate carving.
Nuremberg was then alive with the spirit of art, and everywhere he
turned there was something beautiful to quicken his pulse and feed the
flame within his soul, that was half rapture and half bitterness. No
idle boast was the old rhyme,--
"Nuremberg's hand
Goes through every land."
For the city's renown had spread far and wide, and in its many branches
of industry, as well as in the higher walks of art, it had reached the
zenith of its fame. Already, indeed, the canker-worm was gnawing at the
root, and unerring retribution was creeping on a blinded people; but no
sign of the future was manifested in the universal prosperity of the
day. Every street furnished its food for the artist's soul: the
Frauenkirche, enriched with the loving gifts of devout generations; St.
Sebald's, with its carved portal, its stained windows, its treasures of
bronze, and, above all, the shrine where Peter Vischer and his sons
labored for thirteen years. Gabriel loved St. Sebald's dearly, but
closer still to his heart was the majestic church of St. Lorenz, where,
in sharp relief against the dull red pillars, rose that dream in stone,
the Sacrament House of Adam Krafft, its slender, fretted spire springing
to the very roof, clasped in the embrace of the curling vine tendrils
carved around it.
Here the boy would linger for hours, never weary of studying every
detail of this faultless shrine. With envious eyes he gazed upon the
kneeling figures of Adam Krafft and his two fellow-laborers, who, carved
in stone, now supported the treasure their hands had wrought. Surely
this was the crowning summit of human ambition--to live thus forever in
the house of God, and before the eyes of men, a part of the very work
which had ennobled the artist's life. Ah! if he, the despised humpback,
could but descend to posterity immortalized by the labor of his hands.
What to the dreaming lad was the picture of Adam Krafft dying in a
hospital, poor, unfriended, and alone, in the midst of a city his genius
had enriched? What was it to him that Nuremberg, which now heaped honors
on the dead, had denied bread to the living? Such bitter truths come not
to the young. They are the heritage of age, and Gabriel was but a boy,
with all a boy's fond hopes and aspirations. Often as he studied the
graceful beauty of the Sacrament House, where, cut in the pure white
stone, he saw the Last Supper and Christ blessing little children, he
wondered whether among those Jewish boys and girls was one who, deformed
and repulsive to the eye, yet felt the Saviour's loving touch and was
comforted.
A few more years rolled by, and each succeeding spring saw Kala taller
and prettier, and Gabriel working harder still at his laborious art. Not
so engrossed, however, but that he knew that Kala was fair, and that
when her soft fingers touched his a swift and sudden fire leaped through
his heart. Kala's beauty lurked in his dreams by night and in his long,
solitary days of toil, and became the motive power of all his best
endeavors. If he should gain wealth, it would be but to lay it at her
feet. If he, the desolate waif, should win fame and distinction, it
would be but to gild her name with his. Surely these things must be
some recompense in a woman's eyes for a pale face and a stunted form;
and Gabriel, lost in foolish dreams, worked on.
Sigmund Wahnschaffe, too, had grown into early manhood and had adopted
his father's calling. Strong arms were as useful in their way as a
creative brain, and if Sigmund could never be an artist like Peter
Vischer, he promised at least to make an excellent workman. People said
he was the handsomest young artisan in Nuremberg, with his dark skin
bronzed by the fires among which he labored, and his black eyes
sparkling with a keen and merry light. Times had changed since the day
he pushed little Kala into the mud, and he looked upon her now as some
frail and delicate blossom, that to handle would be desecration. Yet
Kala was no rare flower, but a common plant, with nothing remarkable
about her except her beauty; and, once married, Sigmund would be prompt
enough to recognize this fact. Gabriel, with a chivalrous and
imaginative soul, might perhaps retain his ideal unbroken till his
death; but in the young bronze-worker's practical mind ideals had no
place, and his bride would slip naturally into the post of housewife,
from whom nothing more exalted would be demanded than thrifty habits and
a cheerful temper.
And Kala knew perfectly that both these young men loved her, and that
one day she would be called upon to choose between them, between
Sigmund, strong, handsome, and resolute, with a laugh and a gay word for
all who met him; and Gabriel, dwarfed and silent, who had caught the
trick of melancholy in his unloved childhood and could not shake it off.
But it was not merely the sense of physical deformity that saddened
Gabriel's soul. The air he breathed was filled with a subtle spirit of
discord; for upon Nuremberg, with her many churches and monuments of
mediæval art, the Reformation had laid its chilling hand. Its influence
was felt on every side--in art, where the joyous simplicity of
Wohlgemuth had given place to the fantastic melancholy of Albrecht
Dürer, fit imprint of a troubled and storm-tossed mind; as well as in
literature, where the bitter raillery and coarse jests of Hans Sachs,
the cobbler-poet, now passed with swift approval from mouth to mouth.
The day had not yet come when Nuremberg, in her blind arrogance, was to
close her gates upon those who had given her life and fame; but already
were heard the first faint murmurs of the approaching storm. What wonder
that Gabriel shrank from the darkening future, and that men like Peter
Burkgmäier, pondering with set mouths and frowning brows, were slowly
making up their minds that the city which had been their birthplace
should never shelter their old age. But Lisbeth went stolidly about the
daily routine of her life; Kala's smiles were as bright and as frequent
as ever; and Sigmund troubled himself not at all with matters beyond his
ken.
Winter had set in early, and already November had brought in its train
snow and biting winds, and the promise of severe cold to come. It was a
busy season for the bronze-workers, and Sigmund toiled unceasingly, his
cheerful thoughts giving zest to his labors and new strength to his
mighty arm. For did not each evening see him by Kala's side, and had she
not, after months of vain coquetting, at last fairly yielded up her
heart?
"Kala will make a good wife," said Lisbeth, proudly. "And she goes not
empty-handed to her husband's house."
"They are a well-matched pair," said Peter, meditatively. "Health and
beauty and dulness are no mean heritage in these troubled times."
And though the neighbors hesitated to call the young couple dull, they
one and all agreed that the marriage was a suitable one, and that they
had long foreseen it. "Why, they were little lovers in childhood, even!"
said Theresa, the wife of Johann Dyne, the toy-vender in the next
street; and Kala, who had perhaps forgotten the time when her
child-lover had knocked her into the gutter, smiled, and showed her
beautiful white teeth, and suffered the remark to pass uncontradicted.
But even the most stolid of women have always some lurking tenderness
for those who they know have loved them vainly, and Kala, though she had
without a demur accepted Sigmund for her husband, yet broke the news to
Gabriel with much gentleness, and was greatly comforted by the apparent
composure with which it was received. He grew perhaps a trifle paler and
quieter than before, if such a thing were possible, and shut himself up
more resolutely with his work; but that was all. No one would have
dreamed that life with its fair promises had suddenly grown worthless in
his hands, and that the rich gifts which still were left him seemed as
nothing compared with the valueless treasure he had lost. Even his art
had become hateful, freighted as it was with dead hopes; and often, when
all believed him to be toiling in his little den, he was wandering
aimlessly through the streets of Nuremberg, seeking comfort in those
haunts which had once been to him as dear friends and companions. For
hours he would linger in the church of St. Lorenz, and then slowly make
his way to the Thiergarten Gate, where, along the Seilersgasse to the
churchyard, rise at regular intervals the seven stone pillars on which
Adam Krafft has carved, in beautiful bas-reliefs, scenes from the
Passion of the Lord. Years before the simple piety of a Nuremberg
citizen had erected these monuments of holy art, and their founder,
Martin Ketzel, had even travelled into Palestine, that he might measure
the exact distances of that most sorrowful journey from the house of
Pontius Pilate to the hill of Calvary. Heedless of the severe weather,
Gabriel visited daily these primitive stations, striving to forget his
own bitterness in the presence of a divine grief; and, laying his
troubled heart at his Saviour's feet, would return, strengthened and
comforted, into the busy city.
Christmas now was drawing near, and with its approach a new resolve took
possession of his soul. A fresh light had dawned upon him, and, shaking
off his apathy, he started to work in earnest. All day long he toiled
with a steady purpose, though none were permitted to see the fruit of
his labors. Kala, indeed, unaccustomed to be thwarted in her curiosity,
presented herself at his work-shop door and implored admittance; but not
even to her was the secret revealed.
"It is very unkind of you!" she pouted, hardly doubting that she would
gain her point. "You never kept anything from me in your life before."
Gabriel took her hand and looked with strange, wistful eyes into her
pretty face. "I am keeping nothing from you now," he said. "It is your
wedding-gift that I am fashioning; but you must be content to wait its
completion before you see it. By Christmas it shall be your own."
So Kala, comforted with the thought of future possession, bided her
time, and Gabriel was left in undisputed enjoyment of his solitude. At
first he worked languidly and with little zest; but from interest grew
ambition, and from ambition a passionate love for the labor of his
hands, which threw all other hopes and fears into the background. Kala
was forgotten, and Gabriel, absorbed in the contemplation of his art and
striving as he had never striven before, felt as though some power not
his own were working in him, and that the supreme effort of his life had
come. Yet ever in the midst of his feverish activity a strange weakness
seized and held him powerless in its grasp; and like a keen and sudden
pain came the bitter thought that he might die before his work was done.
Instinctively he felt that his hopes of future fame rested on these few
weeks that were flying pitilessly by, each one carrying with it some
portion of his wasted strength; and that if death should overtake him
with his labor uncompleted his name and memory must perish from the
world. So, like one who flies across a Russian steppe pursued by
starving wolves, Gabriel sped on his task, seeking to out-distance the
grim and noiseless wolf that followed close upon his track.
* * * * *
It was Christmas eve, the anniversary of that snowy night when Peter
Burkgmäier had carried home the deformed child, and now all was bustle
and glad preparation in the stone-mason's household. Within three days
Kala was to be married, and Lisbeth, who felt that her reputation as
cook and housewife was at stake, spared neither time nor trouble in her
hospitable labors. Since early morning the great fires had roared in her
spacious kitchen, and all the poor who came to beg a Christmas bounty
tasted freely of her good cheer. With light heart and busy fingers Kala
assisted her mother, and doled out the bread and cakes--not too
lavishly--to the ragged children who clamored around the door; wondering
much in the meanwhile what trinket Sigmund would bring her with which to
deck herself on Christmas morning.
And in his little room Gabriel stood looking at his finished work, and
asking himself if his heart spoke truly when it whispered: "You, too,
are great." It was sweet to realize that his task was done and that he
might rest at last; it was sweeter still to see in the bit of carved
wood before him the fulfilment of all his dearest dreams. So, while
daylight faded into dusk and evening into night, he sat lost in a maze
of tangled thoughts that crowded wearily through his listless brain. It
was now too dark for him to discern the image by his side, but from time
to time he laid his hand upon it with a gentle touch, as a mother might
caress a sleeping child, and was happy in its dumb companionship.
How long he had been sitting thus he never knew, when suddenly out into
the frosty air rang the great bells of St. Lorenz, calling the faithful
to midnight Mass.
Clearly and joyfully they pealed, as if their brazen tongues were
striving to utter in words their messages of good-will to men. Gabriel's
heart leaped at the sound, and a great yearning seized him to kneel once
more within those beloved walls, and amid their solemn beauty to adore
the new-born Babe. Jubilantly rang the bells, and their glad voices
seemed to speak to him as old friends, and with one accord to urge him
on. Weak and dizzy, he crept down the narrow stairs and out into the
bitter night. The sharp wind struck him in the face, and worried him as
it had worried years before the baby abandoned to its cruel embraces.
Yet with the appealing music of the bells ringing in his ears he never
thought of turning back, but struggled bravely onward until the frowning
walls of St. Lorenz rose up before him. Through the open doors poured a
little crowd of devotees, and Gabriel, entering, stole softly up to the
Sacrament House, where so often the carved Christ had looked with gentle
eyes upon his lonely childhood.
Mass had begun, and the great church was hardly a third full, for
Nuremberg's weakening faith exempted her children from such untimely
services. But in the faces of the scattered worshippers there was
something never seen before--a grave severity, a solemn purpose, as when
men are banded together to resist in silence an advancing foe. Gabriel,
dimly conscious of this, strove to restrain his wandering thoughts, and
fixed his eyes upon the gleaming altar. But no prayer rose to his lips,
though into his heart came that deep sense of rest and contentment which
found an utterance long ago in the words of an apostle: "Lord, it is
good for us to be here." Like a child he had come to his Father's feet,
and, laying there his rejected human love, his ungratified human
ambition, he gained in their place the peace which passeth all
understanding. The two shadows which had mocked him during life vanished
into nothingness at the hour of death, and with clear eyes he saw the
value of an immortal soul.
Mass was over, and the congregation moved slowly through the shadowy
aisles out into the starlit night. But Gabriel sat still, his head
resting against the stone pillar, his dead eyes fixed upon the Sacrament
House, and upon the sculptured Christ rising triumphant from the grave.
* * * * *
Four weeks had gone by since the body of the humpback had been carried
sorrowfully past the stations of the Seilersgasse into the quiet
churchyard beyond. The dusk of a winter evening shrouded the empty
streets when a stranger, of grave demeanor and in the prime of life,
knocked at the stone-mason's door. Kala opened it, and her father,
recognizing the visitor, rose with wondering respect to greet him. It
was Veit Stoss, the wood-carver, then at the zenith of his fame. With
quick, keen eyes he glanced around the homely room, taking in every
detail of the scene before him--Lisbeth weaving placidly by the fire;
Kala fair and blushing in the lamp-light; and Sigmund playing idly with
the crooked little turnspit at his feet. Then he turned to Peter, and
for a minute the two men stood looking furtively at one another, as
though each were trying to read his companion's thoughts. Finally, the
wood-carver spoke.
"I grieve, Master Burkgmäier," he said, with courteous sympathy, "that
you should have lost your foster-son, to whom report says you were much
attached. And I hear also that the young man promised highly in his
calling."
"Then you heard not all," answered the stone-mason, slowly. "Gabriel did
more, for he fulfilled his promise."
A sudden light came into the artist's eyes. "It is true, then," he said,
eagerly, "that the boy left behind him a rare piece of work, which has
not yet been seen outside these walls. I heard the rumor, but thought it
idle folly."
Peter Burkgmäier crossed the room and opened a deep cupboard. "You shall
see it," he said simply, "and answer for yourself. No one in Nuremberg
is more fit to judge." Then, lifting out something wrapped in a heavy
cloth, he carried it to the table, unveiled it with a reverent hand,
and, stepping back, waited in silence for a verdict.
There was a long, breathless pause, broken only by the low whir of
Lisbeth's busy wheel. Veit Stoss stood motionless, while Peter's eyes
never stirred from the table before them. There, carved in the fair
white wood, rested the divine Babe, as on that blessed Christmas night
when his Mother "wrapped him up in swaddling-clothes and laid him in a
manger." The lovely little head nestled on its rough pillow as though on
Mary's bosom; the tiny limbs were relaxed in sleep; the whole figure
breathed at once the dignity of the Godhead and the pathetic
helplessness of babyhood. Instinctively one loved, and pitied, and
adored. Nor was this all. Every broken bit of straw that thrust its
graceful, fuzzy head from between the rough bars of the manger, every
twisted knot of grass, every gnarl and break in the wood itself, had
been wrought with the tender accuracy of the true artist, who finds
nothing too simple for his utmost care and skill.
Veit Stoss drew a heavy breath and turned to his companion. "It is a
masterpiece," he said, gravely, "which I should be proud to call my own.
I congratulate you on the possession of so great a treasure."
"It is not mine," returned the artisan, "but my daughter's. Gabriel
wrought it for her wedding-gift."
The wood-carver's keen blue eyes scanned Kala's pretty, stolid face,
and then wandered to Sigmund's broad shoulders and mighty bulk. A faint,
derisive smile curled his well-cut lips. "Your daughter's beauty merits,
indeed, the rarest of all rare tokens," he said, slowly. "But perhaps
there are other things more needful to a young housewife than even this
precious bit of carving. If she will part with it I will pay her seventy
thalers, and it shall lie in St. Sebald's Church near my own Virgin,
that all may see its loveliness and remember the hand that fashioned
it."
Seventy thalers! Sigmund dropped the dog and lifted his handsome head
with a look of blank bewilderment. Seventy thalers for a bit of wood
like that, when his own strong arms could not earn as much in months! He
stared at the little image in wondering perplexity, as though striving
to see by what mysterious process it had arrived at such a value; while
into his heart crept a thought strictly in keeping with his practical
nature. If the humpback could have produced work worth so much, what a
thousand pities he should die with only one piece finished!
On Lisbeth, too, a revelation seemed to have fallen. Her wheel had
stopped, and in her mind she was rapidly running over a list of
household goods valued at seventy thalers. It was a mental calculation
quickly and cleverly accomplished; for Lisbeth was not slow in all
things, and years of thrift had taught her the full worth of money.
Instinctively she glanced at her husband and marvelled at his unmoved
face.
"Your offer is a liberal one, Master Stoss," said Peter, gravely. "And I
rejoice to think that the poor lad's genius will be recognized. In him
Nuremberg would have had another famous son."
"In him Nuremberg has now a famous son," corrected Veit Stoss, laying
his hand upon the statue. "No other proof of greatness can be needed."
With gentle care he replaced the cloth and lifted the precious burden in
his arms, when suddenly Kala sprang forward, her cheeks ablaze, her blue
eyes dark with anger. Transfigured for one instant into a new and
passionate beauty, she snatched the image from his hands.
"It is mine!" she cried, fiercely; "mine! Gabriel loved me, and carved
it for me when he knew that he was dying. It was for me he did it, and
you shall not take it from me."
She gathered it to her bosom with a low, broken cry, and darted from the
room. God only knows what late love, and pity, and remorse were working
in her breast. Veit Stoss turned softly to her father. "It is enough,"
he said. "Your daughter has the prior right, and I came not here to
wrong her."
And so the hand which had robbed Gabriel of love and life robbed him of
fame. For the statue which should have given joy to generations remained
unknown in the artisan's family. At first many came to see and wonder at
its beauty; but with the advent of a colder creed men wanted not such
tokens of a vanished fervor, and the little Christ-Child was soon
forgotten by the world. Perhaps Kala's sturdy grandchildren destroyed it
as a useless toy; perhaps it perished by fire, or flood, or evil
accident. No memory of it lingers in the streets of Nuremberg; and
Gabriel, lifted beyond the everlasting hills, knoweth the vanity of all
human wishes.
_The Italian Guest's Selection._
"He is a Tuscan born, of an old
noble race in that part of Italy."
_Hawthorne._