Ann looked right sweetly as she told my aunt that she felt put to shame
by the great loving-kindness which had brought the feeble lady out
through the forest in the bitter winter weather for her sake, and she
kissed the thin, small hand with deep feeling; and even the elder woman
unbent and freely gave vent before her favorite to the full warmth of
her heart, which she was not wont to display. She had told the Pernharts
what were the fears which had brought her into the town, so the chamber
was presently cleared, and the master called away Mistress Giovanna
after that my aunt had expressed her admiration of her rare charms.
As I too was now preparing to retire, which methought but seemly Aunt
Jacoba beckoned me to stay. Ann likewise understood what had brought her
sickly friend to her, and she whispered to me that albeit she was deeply
thankful for the abundant goodness my aunt had ever shown her, yet could
she never swerve from her well-considered purpose. To this I was only
able to reply that on one point at least she must change her mind, for
that I knew for certain that old grand-dame Pernhart loved her truly.
At this she cried out gladly and thankfully: “Oh, Margery! if only that
were true!”
So soon as we three were left together, my aunt went to the heart of the
matter at once, saying frankly to what end she had come hither, that she
knew all that Ann had suffered through Herdegen, and how well she
had taken it, and that she had now set her mind on wedding with the
Magister.
And whereas Ann here broke in with a resolute “And that I will!” my
aunt put it to her that she must be off with one or ever she took on
the other lover. Herdegen had come before Master Peter, and the first
question therefor was as to how matters stood with him.
At this Ann humbly besought her to ask nothing concerning him; if my
aunt loved her she would forbear from touching on the scarce-healed
wound. So much as this she said, though with pain and grief; but her
friend was not to be moved, but cried: “And do I not thank Master
Ulsenius when he thrusts his probe to the heart of my evil, when he
cuts or burns it? Have you not gladly approved his saying that the leech
should never despair so long as the sick man’s heart still throbs?
Well then, your trouble with Herdegen is sick and sore and lies right
deep....”
But Ann broke in again, crying: “No, no, noble lady, the heart of that
matter has ceased to beat. It is dead and gone for ever!”
“Is it so?” said my aunt coolly. “Still, look it close in the face. Old
Im Hoff--I have read the letter-commands your lover to give you up and
do his bidding. Yet, child, does he take good care not to write this
to you. Finding it over hard to say it himself, he leaves the task to
Margery. And as for that letter; a Lenten jest I called it yestereve;
and so it is verily! Read it once more. Why, it is as dripping with love
as a garment drips when it is fished out of a pool! While he is trying
to shut the door on you he clasps you to his heart. Peradventure his
love never glowed so hotly, and he was never so strongly drawn to you as
when he wrote this paltry stuff to burst the sacred bands which bind you
together. Are you so dull as not to feel this?”
“Nay, I see it right well,” cried Ann eagerly, “I knew it when I first
read the letter. But that is the very point! Must not a lover who can
barter away his love for filthy lucre be base indeed? If when he ceased
to be true he had likewise ceased to love, if the fickle Fortunatus had
wearied of his sweetheart--then I could far more easily forgive.”
“And do you tell me that your heart ever throbbed with true love for
him?” asked her friend in amazement, and looking keenly into her eyes as
though she expected her to say No. And when Ann cried: “How can you
even ask such a question?” My aunt went on: “Then you did love him? And
Margery tells me that you and she have made some strange compact to make
other folks happy. Two young maids who dare to think they can play at
being God Almighty! And the Magister, I conceive, was to be the first
to whom you proposed to be a willing sacrifice, let it cost you what it
may? That is how matters stand?”
Ann was not now so ready to nod assent, and my aunt murmured something I
could not hear, as she was wont to do when something rubbed her against
the grain; then she said with emphasis: “But child, my poor child, love,
and wounded pride, and heart-ache have turned your heart and good sense.
I am an old woman, and I thank God can see more clearly. It is real,
true love, pleasing to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, aye and to the
merciful Virgin and all the saints who protect you, which has bound
you and Herdegen together from your infancy. He, though faithless and a
sinner, still bears his love in his heart and you have not been able
to root yours up and cast it out. He has done his worst, and in doing
it--remember his letter--in doing it, I say, has poisoned his own young
life already. In that Babel called Paris he does but reel from one
pleasure to another. But how long can that last? Do you not see, as I
see, that the day must come when, sickened and loathing all this folly
he will deem himself the most wretched soul on earth, and look about
him for the firm shore as a sailor does who is tossed about in a leaking
ship at sea? Then will he call to mind the past, his childhood and
youth, his pure love and yours. Then you yourself, you, Ann, will be
the island haven for which he will long. Then--aye, child, it is so, you
will be the only creature that may help him; and if you really crave
to create happiness--if your love is as true as--not so long ago--you
declared it to be, on your knees before me and with scalding tears, he,
and not Master Peter must be the first on whom you should carry out
your day-dreams--for I know not what other name to give to such vain
imaginings.”
At this Ann sobbed aloud and wrung her hands, crying: “But he cast me
off, sold me for gold and silver. Can I, whom he has flung into the
dust, seek to go after him? Would it beseem an honest and shamefaced
maid if I called him back to me? He is happy--and he will still be happy
for many long, long years amid his reckless companions; if the time
should ever come of which you speak, most worshipful lady, even then he
will care no more for Ann, bloomless and faded, than for the threadbare
bravery in which he once arrayed himself. As for me and my love, warmly
as it will ever glow in my breast, so long as I live and breathe, he
will never need it in the life of pleasure in which he suns himself. It
is no vain imagining that I have made my goal, and if I am to bring joy
to the wretched I must seek others than he.”
“Right well,” said my aunt, “if so be that your love is no worthier nor
better than his.”
And from the unhappy maid’s bosom the words were gasped out: “It is
verily and indeed true and worthy and deep; never was truer love...”
“Never?” replied my aunt, looking at her enquiringly. “Have you not
read of the love of which the Scripture speaketh? Love which is able and
ready to endure all things.”
And the words of the Apostle came into my mind which the Carthusian
sister had graven on our memories, burning them in, as it were, as being
those which above all others should live in every Christian woman’s
heart; and whereas I had hitherto held back as beseemed me, I now came
forward and said them with all the devout fervor of my young heart,
as follows: “Charity suffereth long and is kind; Charity envieth not;
Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up; seeketh not her own, is
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; beareth all things, believeth all
things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
While I spoke Ann, panting for breath, fixed her eyes on the ground,
but my aunt rehearsed the words after me in a clear voice: “beareth all
things, believeth all things, hopeth and endureth all things.” And she
added right earnestly; “therefore do thou believe and hope and endure
yet longer, my poor child, and tell me in all truth: Does it seem to you
a lesser deed to lead back the sinner into the way of righteousness and
bliss in this world and the next, than to give alms to the beggar?”
Ann shook her head, and my aunt went on: “And if there is any one--let
me repeat it--who by faithful love may ever rescue Herdegen, albeit he
is half lost, it is you. Come, come,” and she signed to her, and Ann did
her bidding and fell on her knees by her, as she had done erewhile in
the forest-lodge. The elder lady kissed her hair and eyes, and said
further: “Cling fast to your love, my darling. You have nothing else
than love, and without it life is shallow indeed, is sheer emptiness.
You will never find it in the Magister’s arms, and that your heart is of
a certainty, not set on marrying a well-to-do man at any cost....”
But she did not end her speech, inasmuch as Ann imploringly raised her
great eyes in mild reproach, as though to defend herself from some hurt.
So my aunt comforted her with a few kind words, and then went on to
admonish her as follows: “Verily it is not love you lack, but patient
trust. I have heard from Margery here what bitter disappointments you
have suffered. And it is hard indeed to the stricken heart to look for
a new spring for the withered harvest of joy. But look you at my good
husband. He ceases not from sowing acorns, albeit he knows that it will
never be vouchsafed to him to see them grown to fine trees, or to earn
any profit from them. Do you likewise learn to possess your soul in
patience; and do not forget that, if Herdegen is lost, the question will
be put to you: ‘Did you hold out a hand to him while it was yet time
to save him, or did you withdraw from him your love and favor in
faint-hearted impatience at the very first blow?’”
The last words fell in solemn earnest from my aunt’s lips, and struck
Ann to the heart; she confessed that she had many times said the same
things to her self, but then maiden pride had swelled up in her and had
forbidden her to lend an ear to the warning voice; and nevertheless
none had spoken so often or so loudly in her soul, so that her heart’s
deepest yearning responded to what her friend had said.
“Then do its bidding,” said my aunt eagerly, and I said the same; and
Ann, being not merely overruled but likewise convinced, yielded and
confessed that, even as Master Peter’s wife, she could never have slain
the old love, and declared herself ready to renounce her pride and
wrath.
Thus had my aunt’s faithful love preserved her from sin, and gladly
did I consent to her brave spirit when she said to Ann: “You must save
yourself for that skittle-witted wight in Paris, child; for none other
than he can make you rightly happy, nor can he be happy with any other
woman than my true and faithful darling!”
Ann covered my aunt’s hands with kisses, and the words flowed heartily
and gaily from her lips as she cried: “Yes, yes, yes! It is so! And if
he beat me and scorned me, if he fell so deep that no man would leap in
after him, I, I, would never let him sink.”
And then Ann threw herself on my neck and said: “Oh, how light is my
heart once more. Ah, Margery! now, when I long to pray, I know well
enough what for.”
My aunt’s dim eyes had rarely shone so brightly as at this hour, and
her voice sounded clearer and firmer than it was wont when she once more
addressed us and said: “And now the old woman will finish up by telling
you a little tale for your guidance. You knew Riklein, the spinster,
whom folks called the night-spinster; and was not she a right loving and
cheerful soul? Yet had she known no small meed of sorrows. She died but
lately on Saint Damasius’ day last past, and the tale I have to tell
concerns her. They called her the night-spinster, by reason that she
ofttimes would sit at her wheel till late into the night to earn money
which she was paid at the rate of three farthings the spool. But it was
not out of greed that the old body was so keen to get money.
“In her youth she had been one of the neatest maids far and wide, and
had set her heart on a charcoal burner who was a sorry knave indeed, a
sheep-stealer and a rogue, who came to a bad end on the rack. But for
all that Riklein never ceased to love him truly and, albeit he was dead
and gone, she did not give over toiling diligently while she lived yet
for him. The priest had told her that, inasmuch as her lover had taken
the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper on the scaffold, the Kingdom of
Heaven was not closed to him, yet would it need many a prayer and many
a mass to deliver him from the fires of purgatory. So Riklein, span and
span, day and night, and stored up all she earned, and when she lay on
her death-bed, not long ago, and the priest gave her the Holy Sacrament,
she took out her hoard from beneath her mattress and showed it to him,
asking whether that might be enough to pay to open the way for Andres
to the joys of Heaven? And when the chaplain said that it would be, she
turned away her face and fell asleep. So do you spin your yarn, child,
and let the flax on your distaff be glad assurance; and, if ever your
heart sinks within you, remember old Riklein!”
“And the Farmer’s daughter in ‘Poor Heinrich,’” I said, “who gladly gave
her young blood to save her plighted lord from leprosy.”
Thus had my aunt gained her end; but when she strove to carry Ann
away from her home and kindred, and keep her in the forest as her own
child--to which Master Pernhart and his mother gave their consent--she
failed in the attempt. Ann was steadfast in her desire to remain with
her mother and the children, and more especially with her deaf and dumb
brother, Mario. If my aunt should at any time need her she had but
to command her, and she would gladly go to her, this very day if she
desired it; howbeit duly to work out her spinning--and by this she meant
that she bore Riklein in mind--she must ever do her part for her own
folk, with a clear conscience.
Thus it was fixed that Ann should go to the Forest lodge to stay till
Christmas and the New Year were past, only she craved a few hours delay
that she might remove all doubt from the Magister’s mind. I offered to
take upon myself this painful task; but she altogether rejected this,
and how rightly she judged was presently proved by her cast-off suitor’s
demeanor; inasmuch as he was ever after her faithful servant and called
her his gracious work-fellow. When she had told him of her decision he
swore, well-nigh with violence, to become a monk, and to make over his
inheritance to a convent, but Ann, with much eloquence, besought him to
do no such thing, and laid before him the grace of living to make
others happy; she won him over to join our little league and whereas he
confessed that he was in no wise fit for the life, she promised that she
would seek out the poor and needy and claim the aid only of his learning
and his purse. And some time after she made him a gift of an alms-bag on
which she had wrought the words, “Ann, to her worthy work-fellow.”
Here I am bound to tell that, not to my aunt alone, but to me likewise
did the good work which the old organist had pointed out to my friend,
seem a vain imagining when it had led her to accept a lover whom she
loved not. But when it became a part of her life, stripped of all
bigotry or overmuch zeal, and when the old musician had led us to know
many poor folks, it worked right well and we were able to help many an
one, not alone with money and food, but likewise with good counsel and
nursing in sore need. Whenever we might apply to the Magister, his door
and purse alike were open to us, and peradventure he went more often to
visit and succor the needy than he might otherwise have done,
inasmuch as he thereby found the chance of speech with his gracious
“work-fellow,” of winning her praises and kissing her hand, which Ann
was ever fain to grant when he had shown special zeal.
We were doubtless a strange fellowship of four: Ann and I, the organist
and Master Peter, and, albeit we were not much experienced in the ways
of the world, I dare boldly say that we did more good and dried more
tears than many a wealthy Abbey.
At the New Year I followed Ann to the forest, and helped to grace
the hunter’s board “with smart wenches;” and when she and I came home
together after Twelfth day, she found that the forward apprentice had
quitted her step-father’s house. Not only had my aunt told old Dame
Magdalen of his ill-behaving, but his father at Augsburg was dead, and
so Pemhart could send him home to the dwelling he had inherited without
disgracing him. Yet, after this, he made so bold as to sue for Ann in
a right fairly written letter, to which she said him nay in a reply no
less fairly written.