THE “LILY-FLOWER”.
Could it be favour and prejudice which blinded the eyes of Sabina von
Steinbach, the Burgomaster’s only child, to the attractions of her
exquisite cousin Otto? Really Otto found it a hard matter to accredit
such ill-taste to so pretty a girl as Sabina!
Pretty Sabina undoubtedly was, with an indescribable charm about her
absolutely bewitching; the gentlest, simplest-minded maiden in all
the empire; and yet, withal, in her way the most dignified little
woman imaginable. No wonder the old goldsmith loved her as the apple
of his eye. Only within the last year it was, that Sabina had come
home from the convent near the old neighbouring town of Freiburg.
Niklaus’ wife had died when their little daughter was barely two years
old; and the child had ever since been under the care of her aunt
Odille, Superioress of St. Marie’s Convent. This lady did her duty very
faithfully by Sabina; and when, at the age of sixteen, she left the
convent to come home and keep her father’s house, there was not in all
Elsass a thriftier, cleverer housewife, or a more accomplished little
lady, than the daughter of the Burgomaster of Strassburg.
Niklaus had a large house, and a goodly retinue of servants, and the
Mother Odille had been careful to instil into her niece’s mind, that
it was her duty to learn to be able to instruct these, or to put her
own hand to anything when occasion demanded; and to this end Sabina had
been thoroughly initiated into all those domestic mysteries essential
to daily creature-comfort. Besides, however, Sabina’s peculiar
genius for compounding conserves and condiments, and making such
venison-pasties as have been never before or since equalled, she could
spin, and embroider, and play on the virginal, and sing very sweetly;
and then, too, she could read very passably indeed; so that as times
went, Sabina was quite accomplished. The Mother Odille had also had
some idea of having Sabina taught to write, but when she broached the
subject to her brother, Niklaus negatived it very emphatically. “No
daughter of his,” he said, “should ever hold a pen, if he could help
it. Your women who want to be as clever as men, were never the ones to
make a hearthstone happy. No, no; write, forsooth—what next?” Well,
Sabina had no great fancy for learning to write; she did not care to be
inking her little fingers just for the sake of being like a few learned
ladies, who scrawled ugly marks on vellum and parchment, because they
had got it into their heads that it was quite the thing to do.
And so Niklaus von Steinbach was very proud of his daughter, and it was
a day of days for him when, for the first time, he walked one Sunday
morning to Cathedral Mass with her little hand resting on his arm.
Many a glance was cast at the girl as she knelt beside her father in
the crowded nave before the high altar. Otto von Steinbach, among the
rest, thought she was uncommonly good-looking, that little convent-bred
cousin of his; and he glared jealously on one or two of his male
acquaintance, who betrayed by their covert stares that they were of his
opinion. Among the crowd of worshippers that same morning, chanced to
be Conrad Dasipodius; but, as Otto was wont to declare, Dasipodius was
always so aggravatingly attentive to the special business in hand, be
it what it might, and the special business just then being High Mass,
some time passed before the mathematician looked up from his missal.
Possibly he might have persisted in playing this Saint Anthony part
to the end of the service, had not his ear caught the tones of a soft
voice, mingling with his friend the Burgomaster’s deep, thorough bass,
when the Tantum Ergo swelled forth—a voice so clear, so distinct from
other voices, and yet so exquisitely gentle and subdued, that he turned
to see what manner of woman it was who sang; and when he saw her, it
seemed to him that nothing so lovely as that face had ever rejoiced his
eyes, unless, indeed, it was the picture up yonder of Our Lady,—no,
no—not sad-faced Mater Dolorosa; farther along there, nearer the
altar, that gentle young Mother Mary, with the bright, glad smile. And
so, having once looked, he could not choose but look again, and many
times; and when Mass was over, he lingered on the broad porch steps,
just, as he told himself, to bid Master Niklaus a civil good-morrow;
and when, as it chanced, the Burgomaster stopped, and held out his
hand to Dasipodius, and said: “This is my little daughter, Master
Dasipodius, you must bid her welcome home to Strassburg,” his heart
beat a thought faster, and his pale cheek flushed ever so slightly;
and then—then the old man and his daughter passed on. “Holy Virgin!
but what a pretty creature she has grown, to be sure!” said Niklaus’
friends and neighbours among themselves; and afterwards they said as
much to Niklaus himself:—“Why, Burgomaster, she is sweet and fair as a
lily-flower.”
“Aye, aye!” murmured the well-pleased Niklaus. “Yes, a lily-flower, so
she is—a lily-flower!”
After that Sunday morning, it was no great wonder that Sabina von
Steinbach, like thousands of other pretty young girls, since the
beginning of the world, began to be able to count her admirers by the
score. A very ardent one among them was Otto von Steinbach; Sabina’s
beauty was very much to his taste, and then that dowry, which he knew
the wealthy goldsmith’s daughter would have, considerably enhanced her
other attractions. As to the near relationship between them, well, one
would of course have to get a dispensation for that; but dispensations
were to be had, and the game was worth the candle, quite worth it.
And so Otto von Steinbach decided that he would marry Sabina; and
began to set about those little preliminary formalities which custom
demanded on such occasions. Somehow, however, his wooing did not speed
so fast as it ought to have sped; Sabina would so foolishly insist
on treating him in that sort of cousinly fashion which is flavoured
with too strong a spice of fraternal affection, to please a would-be
lover. Of course, Sabina being a woman, and a young and pretty one to
boot, had in her something of the coquette, and liked her cousin’s
homage very well, just as she liked to hear the sighs of those other
Corydons who flocked about her; but she treated all with the greatest
impartiality, troubling her head little enough about them, and as to
her heart, that seemed not to have the shadow of a share in the matter;
and when Niklaus used jokingly to ask her who was to be the chosen one,
she would only laugh merrily, and say that they were “a pack of silly
geese, and not one of them was to be chosen”.
Now and again Conrad Dasipodius would look in at the Burgomaster’s
for half an hour of an evening on his way home from the studio; but
that was an old habit of the mathematician’s; his father Christian and
Niklaus had been schoolmates, and the friendship thus begun in youth,
had continued on through life, and there was nothing these old men so
well enjoyed, as to sit down and enjoy a friendly quarrel together
over a beaker of Burgundy, for luckily their politics did not in the
least agree. Niklaus was all for ceding Strassburg to France, a subject
which had already begun to be mooted, while Christian was dead against
the cession. Strassburg, he contended, had been the Fatherland’s time
out of mind, and the Fatherland’s it ought to remain to the crack of
doom; but Niklaus would tell Christian that he was a sentimental old
pig-head—was not Germany already a vast deal too big and unwieldy for
its own comfort?—wasn’t it divided against itself? and what good was
Strassburg ever to get out of such a state of things?—whereas France
was a grand united thriving monarchy, with men at its head who looked
well after its affairs; why, there couldn’t be another opinion about it
at all. Christian, however, maintained that there was another opinion,
and he stuck to it to his dying day, and Niklaus stuck to his; and
perhaps if these two old men could come back from Shadowland now, they
might still find something to talk over regarding this question.
And so Niklaus and Christian being such fast friends, it was natural
that Christian’s son should look in now and then at the Burgomaster’s.
Moreover, Conrad had lately had business with von Steinbach. The
goldsmith was negotiating about certain precious stones required for
the interior mechanism of the new clock, and this transaction brought
Dasipodius into yet more frequent communication with von Steinbach.
Therefore, as Sabina told herself, it certainly was the most natural
thing in the world that the mathematician should come and pass
half-an-hour or more in their old dining-hall, at least three evenings
in the week. When it comes to be a question of precious-stone dealing,
one cannot of course be too careful down to the smallest minutiæ; and
Sabina began quite to like these visits of the young mathematical
professor, and indeed to look forward to them. It was so good, she
thought, for her father to be having a chat with a clever man now and
then, instead of being always obliged to bend to her little feminine
intellectual level, and that of the every-day people with whom he
ordinarily had to do. And then really, although often she could not
altogether follow the learned current of their confabulations, it was
very pleasant to sit by at her spinning or her embroidery-frame in the
mullioned window, and listen to the grave, quiet tones of Conrad’s
voice, which to her had in them something far more agreeable than the
magpie chatter of her cousin Otto and the rest. Then too, it seemed
to her that his accents sounded still more strangely sweet, when he
turned, as sometimes he did—not often—specially to address herself; and
she thought that never were such good, kind, beautiful eyes as his—yes,
so incomparably more beautiful—so different from any other eyes she had
ever seen; and she would read them to herself, just as she used to read
in her little Book of Hours, until their glances lived in her heart
and her memory, every whit as much as the prayers did; and she came by
degrees to meditate long and often upon them—for indeed there was in
their quiet, thoughtful earnestness, much food for meditation—until
the girl found herself no longer fancy free, but loving Conrad
Dasipodius with all her heart.
Yet, what a terrible state of things! To think that she had fallen in
love, as people call it, with this tall, grave, learned gentleman,
who could have as much idea about her, as he had about a gingerbread
doll. Oh, it was humiliating! terrible! and Sabina began to fret
herself greatly about it; but there was no need at all, because Conrad
Dasipodius had had many ideas about Sabina, a great many—they had
come to him, much as they had come to her, sitting by the mullioned
window, and watching the crimson glory of the setting sun lingering
round her fair head, and crimsoning the tips of those little white
fingers, as they daintily twined the silken threads; and at such times
his heart beat with a strong new-found love. Sometimes, when these
sunrays had quite faded, he fancied that curious crimson flush still
hovered about her transparent brow and cheek, but then he feared
he might be mistaken, that it was some defect in his eyesight, for
indeed his eyes had been troublesome to him of late—that it was all
a delusion, a mere pleasant dream, for it could be only your dashing,
showily-dressed fellows, such as Otto von Steinbach, for instance, who
were likely to have any chance with pretty maidens of eighteen; and
then Dasipodius began seriously to reconsider that old resolve of his
about taking the vows in Saint Thomas’ monastery. It had always seemed
the best course he could adopt; for a man who intended to devote his
every energy to his profession, there was nothing so good as cloistered
seclusion. Once there safe under its protection, one could work on from
morning till night—ay, from night till morning even, unshackled by
tiresome custom, undisturbed by those drones and frivolous creatures
of the world, who make the student’s life hideous to him by their
thoughtless interruptions. Only the monotonous tinkle every hour or
so of the bell calling to Nones or Compline, for the utterance of
a prayer and a psalm, which, at all events, must do more good than
harm. No carking cares in the peaceful monastery; no distracting pangs
born of unrequited or misplaced love, which make a man unfitted for
life or for death. None of these things; and so Dasipodius resolved
not to allow the germ of his love for the Burgomaster’s daughter to
spread in his heart, until there might be no wrenching it away without
fearful damage. But yet—yet—Conrad, as became so great a mathematician,
weighed and calculated, and watched, and thought, and pondered, until
it began to dawn upon him, that perhaps fine clothes and a few surface
accomplishments need not be all in all to a woman; and gradually he
found himself saying, as lovers will say: “No—is she not so different
from other girls this clear, darling, little Sabina—she has some
sense”;—he did not add in so many words, “for she likes me”; but he
began to think she might like him, and so he grew bolder and bolder,
until one evening he brought her a dark red rose, and begged her wear
it for his sake, daring, as he offered it, to lift his eyes to hers
just for one little moment, and then it must have been—either that
deeply-blushing rose, or else the red sun was at his tricks again, for
there came that red glow in her cheeks, and the lily fingers, as they
fastened the flower in her bodice, trembled and grew chill; and almost
before Conrad knew what he was doing, the little hand was in his warm
grasp, and he had said: “Sabina—I love you—say, can you love me?”
And Sabina nestled to his breast, and said: “Yes, Conrad”.
And there was one kiss, one rapturous murmur, and so ended the suit of
Conrad Dasipodius with Sabina, the Burgomaster’s daughter.