Thus passed our childhood, as I have already said, in very great
happiness; and by the time that my brothers had left the leading strings
far behind them, and were studying their ‘Donatus’, Cousin Maud was
teaching me to read and write, and that with much mirth and the most
frolicsome ways. For instance, she would stamp four copies of each
letter out of sweet honey-cakes, and when I knew them well she gave me
these tiny little A. B. C. cakes, and one I ate myself, and gave the
others to my brothers, or Susan, or my cousin. Often I put them in my
satchel to carry them into the woods with me, and give them to my Cousin
Gotz’s favorite hound or his cross-beak; for he himself did not care
for sweets. I shall have many things to tell of him and the forest; even
when I was very small it was my greatest joy to be told that we were
going to the woods, for there dwelt the dearest and most faithful of
all our kinsmen: my uncle Waldstromer and his family. The stately
hunting-lodge in which he dwelt as head forester of the Lorenzerwald in
the service of the Emperor and of our town, had greater joys for me than
any other, since not only were there the woods with all their delights
and wonders, but also, besides many hounds, a number of strange beasts,
and other pastimes such as a town child knows little of.
But what I most loved was the only son of my uncle and aunt Waldstromer,
for whose dog I kept my cake letters; for though Cousin Gotz was older
than I by eleven years, he nevertheless did not scorn me, but whenever
I asked him to show me this or that, or teach me some light woodland
craft, he would leave his elders to please me.
When I was six years old I went to the forest one day in a scarlet
velvet hood, and after that he ever called me his little “Red
riding-hood,” and I liked to be called so; and of all the boys and lads
I ever met among my brothers’ friends or others I deemed none could
compare with Gotz; my guileless heart was so wholly his that I always
mentioned his name in my little prayers.
Till I was nine we had gone out into the forest three or four times in
each year to pass some weeks; but after this I was sent to school, and
as Cousin Maud took it much to heart, because she knew that my father
had set great store by good learning, we paid such visits more rarely;
and indeed, the strict mistress who ruled my teaching would never have
allowed me to break through my learning for pastime’s sake.
Sister Margaret, commonly called the Carthusian nun, was the name of the
singular woman who was chosen to be my teacher. She was at once the most
pious and learned soul living; she was Prioress of a Carthusian nunnery
and had written ten large choirbooks, besides others. Though the rule of
her order forbade discourse, she was permitted to teach.
Oh, how I trembled when Cousin Maud first took me to the convent.
As a rule my tongue was never still, unless it were when Herdegen sang
to me, or thought aloud, telling me his dreams of what he would do when
he had risen to be chancellor, or captain-in chief of the Imperial army,
and had found a count’s or a prince’s daughter to carry home to his
grand castle. Besides, the wild wood was a second home to me, and now
I was shut up in a convent where the silence about me crushed me like a
too tight bodice. The walls of the vast antechamber, where I was left
to wait, were covered with various texts in Latin, and several times
repeated were these words under a skull.
“Bitter as it is to live a Carthusian, it is right sweet to die one.”
There was a crucifix in a shrine, and so much bright red blood flowed
from the Crown of Thorns and the Wounds that the Sacred Body was half
covered with it, and I was sore afraid at the sight--oh I can find no
words for it! And all the while one nun after another glided through the
chamber in silence, and with bowed head, her arms folded, and never so
much as lifting an eye to look at me.
It was in May; the day was fine and pleasant, but I began to shiver,
and I felt as if the Spring had bloomed and gone, and I had suddenly
forgotten how to laugh and be glad. Presently a cat stole in, leapt on
to the bench where I sat, and arched her back to rub up against me; but
I drew away, albeit I commonly laved to play with animals; for it glared
at me strangely with its green eyes, and I had a sudden fear that it
would turn into a werewolf and do me a hurt.
At length the door opened, and a woman in nun’s weeds came in with my
cousin; she was the taller by a head. I had never seen so tall a woman,
but the nun was very thin, too, and her shoulders scarce broader than
my own. Ere long, indeed, she stooped a good deal, and as time went on
I saw her ever with her back bent and her head bowed. They said she had
some hurt of the back-bone, and that she had taken this bent shape from
writing, which she always did at night.
At first I dared not look up in her face, for my cousin had told me that
with her I must be very diligent, that idleness never escaped her keen
eyes; and Gotz Waldstromer knew the meaning of the Latin motto with
which she began all her writings: “Beware lest Satan find thee idle!”
These words flashed through my mind at this moment; I felt her eye fixed
upon me, and I started as she laid her cold, thin fingers on my brow
and firmly, but not ungently, made me lift my drooping head. I raised my
eyes, and how glad I was when in her pale, thin face I saw nothing but
true, sweet good will.
She asked me in a low, clear voice, though hardly above a whisper, how
old I was, what was my name, and what I had learnt already. She spoke in
brief sentences, not a word too little or too many; and she ever set me
my tasks in the same manner; for though, by a dispensation, she might
speak, she ever bore in mind that at the Last Day we shall be called to
account for every word we utter.
At last she spoke of my sainted parents, but she only said: “Thy father
and mother behold thee ever; therefore be diligent in school that they
may rejoice in thee.--To-morrow and every morning at seven.” Then she
kissed me gently on my head, bowed to my cousin without a word, and
turned her back upon us. But afterwards, as I walked on in the open air
glad to be moving, and saw the blue sky and the green meadows once more,
and heard the birds sing and the children at play, I felt as it were a
load lifted from my breast; but I likewise felt the tall, silent nun’s
kiss, and as if she had given me something which did me honor.
Next morning I went to school for the first time; and whereas it is
commonly the part of a child’s godparents only to send it parcels of
sweetmeats when it goes to school, I had many from various kinsfolks and
other of our friends, because they pitied me as a hapless orphan.
I thought more of my riches, and how to dispense them, than of school
and tasks; and as my cousin would only put one parcel into my little
satchel I stuffed another--quite a little one, sent me by rich mistress
Grosz, with a better kind of sweeties--into the wallet which hung from
my girdle.
On the way I looked about at the folks to see if they observed how I had
got on, and my little heart beat fast as I met my cousin Gotz in front
of Master Pernhart’s brass-smithy. He had come from the forest to live
in the town, that he might learn book-keeping under the tax-gatherers.
We greeted each other merrily, and he pulled my plait of hair and went
on his way, while I felt as if this meeting had brought me good luck
indeed.
In school of course I had to forget such follies at once; for among
Sister Margaret’s sixteen scholars I was far below most of them, not,
indeed in stature, for I was well-grown for my years, but in age and
learning and this I was to discover before the first hour was past.
Fifteen of us were of the great city families, and this day, being the
first day of the school-term, we were all neatly clad in fine woollen
stuffs of Florence or of Flanders make, and colored knitted hose. We all
had fine lace ruffs round the cuffs of our tight sleeves and the square
cut fronts of our bodices; each little maid wore a silken ribbon to tie
her plaits, and almost all had gold rings in her ears and a gold pin at
her breast or in her girdle. Only one was in a simple garb, unlike the
others, and she, notwithstanding her weed was clean and fitting, was
arrayed in poor, grey home spun. As I looked on her I could not but mind
me of Cinderella; and when I looked in her face, and then at her feet to
see whether they were as neat and as little as in the tale, I saw that
she had small ankles and sweet little shoes; and as for her face, I
deemed I had never seen one so lovely and at the same time so strange to
me. Yea, she seemed to have come from another world than this that I
and the others lived in; for we were light or brown haired, with blue or
grey eyes, and healthy red and white faces; while Cinderella had a low
forehead and with big dark eyes strange, long, fine silky lashes; and
heavy plaits of black hair hung down her back.
Ursula Tetzel was accounted by the lads the comeliest maiden of us all;
and I knew full well that the flower she wore in her bodice had been
given to her by my brother Herdegen early that morning, because he had
chosen her for his “Lady,” and said she was the fairest; but as I looked
at her beside this stranger I deemed that she was of poorer stuff.
Moreover Cinderella was a stranger to me, and all the others I knew
well, but I had to take patience for a whole hour ere I could ask who
this fair Cinderella was, for Sister Margaret kept her eye on us, and so
long as I was taught by her, no one at any time made so bold as to speak
during lessons or venture on any pastime.
At last, in a few minutes for rest, I asked Ursula Tetzel, who had come
to the convent school for a year past. She put out her red nether-lip
with a look of scorn and said the new scholar had been thrust among us
but did not belong to the like of us. Sister Margaret, though of a noble
house herself, had forgot what was due to us and our families, and had
taken in this grey hat out of pity. Her father was a simple clerk in the
Chancery office and was accountant to the convent for some small wage.
His name was Veit Spiesz, and she had heard her father say that the
scribe was the son of a simple lute-player and could hardly earn enough
to live. He had formerly served in a merchant’s house at Venice. There
he had wed an Italian woman, and all his children, which were many, had,
like her, hair and eyes as black as the devil. For the sake of a “God
repay thee!” this maid, named Ann, had been brought to mix with us
daughters of noble houses. “But we will harry her out,” said Ursula,
“you will see!”
This shocked me sorely, and I said that would be cruel and I would have
no part in such a matter; but Ursula laughed and said I was yet but
a green thing, and turned away to the window-shelf where all the
new-comers had laid out their sweetmeats at the behest of the eldest or
first of the class; for, by old custom, all the sweetmeats brought by
the novices on the first day were in common.
All the party crowded round the heap of sweetmeats, which waxed greater
and greater, and I was standing among the others when I saw that the
scribe’s daughter Ann, Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her
head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to
her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into
her hand--for I had it still hidden in my poke--and, whispered to her:
“I had two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them on the heap.”
She gave me a questioning look with her great eyes, and when she saw
that I meant it truly she nodded, and there was something in her tearful
look which I never can forget; and I mind, too, that when I passed the
little packet into her hand it seemed that I, and not she, had received
the favor.
She gave the sweetmeats she had taken from me to the eldest, and
spoke not a word, and did not seem to mark that they all mocked at the
smallness of the packet. But soon enough their scorn was turned to glee
and praises; for out of Cinderella’s parcel such fine sweetmeats fell
on to the heap as never another one had brought with her, and among them
was a little phial of attar of roses from the Levant.
At first Ann had cast an anxious look at me, then she seemed as though
she cared not; but when the oil of roses came to light she took it
firmly in her hand to give to me. But Ursula cried out: “Nay. Whatsoever
the new-comers bring is for all to share in common!” Notwithstanding,
Ann laid her hand on mine, which already held the phial, and said
boldly: “I give this to Margery, and I renounce all the rest.”
And there was not one to say her nay, or hinder her; and when she
refused to eat with them, each one strove to press upon her so much as
fell to her share.
When Sister Margaret came back into the room she looked to find us in
good order and holding our peace; and while we awaited her Ann whispered
to me, as though to put herself right in my eyes: “I had a packet of
sweetmeats; but there are four little ones at home.”
Cousin Maud was waiting at the convent gate to take me home. As I was
setting forth at good speed, hand in hand with my new friend, she looked
at the little maid’s plain garb from top to toe, and not kindly. And she
made me leave hold, but yet as though it were by chance, for she came
between us to put my hood straight. Then she busied herself with my
neckkerchief and whispered in my ear: “Who is that?”
So I replied: “Little Ann;” and when she went on to ask who her father
might be, I told her she was a scrivener’s daughter, and was about to
speak of her with hearty good will, when my cousin stopped me by saying
to Ann: “God save you child; Margery and I must hurry.” And she strove
to get me on and away; but I struggled to be free from her, and cried
out with the wilful pride which at that time I was wont to show when I
thought folks would hinder that which seemed good and right in my eyes:
“Little Ann shall come with us.”
But the little maid had her pride likewise, and said firmly: “Be
dutiful, Margery; I can go alone.” At this Cousin Maud looked at her
more closely, and thereupon her eyes had the soft light of good will
which I loved so well, and she herself began to question Ann about her
kinsfolk. The little maid answered readily but modestly, and when my
Cousin understood that her father was a certain writer in the Chancery
of whom she had heard a good report, she was softer and more gentle, so
that when I took hold again of Ann’s little hand she let it pass,
and presently, at parting, kissed her on the brow and bid her carry a
greeting to her worthy father.
Now, when I was alone with Cousin Maud and gave her to understand that I
loved the scribe’s little daughter and wished for no dearer friend, she
answered gravely; “Little maids can hold no conversation with any but
those whose mothers meet in each other’s houses. Take patience till
I can speak to Sister Margaret.” So when my Cousin went out in the
afternoon I tarried in the most anxious expectation; but she came home
with famous good tidings, and thenceforward Ann was a friend to whom I
clung almost as closely as to my brothers. And which of us was the chief
gainer it would be hard to say, for whereas I found in her a trusted
companion to whom I might impart every thing which was scarce worthy of
my brothers’ or my Cousin’s ears, and foremost of all things my childish
good-will for my Cousin Gotz and love of the Forest, to her the place in
my heart and in our house were as a haven of peace when she craved rest
after the heavy duties which, for all she was so young, she had already
taken upon herself.