When, on the evening of the christening day, Lienhard accompanied his
aunt home, Kuni was nowhere to be found. Frau Sophia discovered in her
chamber every article of clothing which she had obtained for her, even
the beaver cap, the prayer-book, and the rosary which she had given.
The young burgomaster, at her request, went to the manager of the rope-
dancers, Loni, the next morning, but the latter asserted that he knew
nothing about the girl. The truth was that he had sent her to Wurzburg
with part of his company.
From that time she had remained with the ropedancers. At first the
master had watched her carefully, that she might not run away again. But
he soon perceived this to be unnecessary; for he had never found any
member of the company more zealous, or seen one make more progress in the
art. Now the only point was to keep her out of the way of other rope-
dancers, English proprietors of circus companies, as well as the numerous
knights and gentlemen who tried to take her from him. Her name had
become famous. When the crier proclaimed that the "flying maiden" would
ascend the rope to the steeple, Loni was sure of a great crowd of
spectators. Among her own profession she had obtained the nickname of
crazy Kuni.
Yet even at that time, and in the midst of the freest intercourse with
German, Spanish, and other officers in Flanders and Brabant, young
knights and light-hearted priests on the Rhine, the Main, the Danube, the
Weser, and the Elbe, whose purses the pretty, vivacious girl, with the
shining raven hair and bright blue eyes, the mistress of her art, seemed
to their owners worthy to empty, she had by no means forgotten Lienhard.
This wrought mischief to many a gay gentleman of aristocratic lineage in
the great imperial and commercial cities; for it afforded Kuni special
pleasure to try her power upon Lienhard's equals in rank. When she went
on with the company, more than one patrician had good reason to remember
her with regret; for she, who shared the lion's portion of her earnings
with her companions or flung it to the poor, was insatiably avaricious
toward these admirers.
The weaker she found many of them, the higher, in her opinion, rose the
image of him who had made her feel his manly strength of resistance so
cruelly. His stern, inexorable nature seemed to her worthy of hate, yet
for three whole years the longing for him scarcely left her heart at
peace an hour.
During this whole period she had not met him. Not until after she had
come to Augsburg, where Loni's company was to give several performances
before the assembled Reichstag, did she see him again. Once she even
succeeded in attracting his gaze, and this was done in a way which
afforded her great satisfaction. His beautiful wife, clad in costly
velvet robes, was walking by his side with eyes decorously downcast; but
he had surely recognised her--there was no doubt of that. Yet he omitted
to inform his wife, even by a look, whom he had met here. Kuni watched
the proud couple a long time, and, with the keen insight of a loving
heart, told herself that he would have pointed her out to Frau Katharina,
if he did not remember her in some way--either in kindness or in anger.
This little discovery had sufficed to transfigure, as it were, the rest
of the day, and awaken a throng of new hopes and questions.
Even now she did not desire to win Frau Katharina's husband from her.
She freely acknowledged that the other's beauty was tenfold greater than
her own; but whether the gifts of love which the woman with the
cloudless, aristocratic composure could offer to her husband were not
like the beggar's pence, compared with the overflowing treasure of ardent
passion which she cherished for Lienhard, was a question to which she
believed there could be but a single answer. Was this lady, restricted
by a thousand petty scruples, as well as by her stiff, heavy gala robes,
a genuine woman at all? Ah! if he would only for once cast aside the
foolish considerations which prevented him also from being a genuine man,
clasp her, whom he knew was his own, in his arms, and hold her as long as
he desired, he should learn what a strong, free, fearless woman, whose
pliant limbs were as unfettered as her heart, could bestow upon him to
whom she gave all the love that she possessed! And he must want
something of her which was to be concealed from the wife. She could not
be mistaken. She had never been deceived in a presentiment that was so
positive. Ever since she reached Augsburg, an inner voice had told her--
and old Brigitta's cards confirmed it--that the destiny of her life would
be decided here, and he alone held her weal and woe in his hand.
Yet she had misinterpreted his conduct to his wife. In spite of the
finery which Kuni owed to the generosity of the Knight of Neckerfels, who
was then a suitor for her favour, Lienhard had recognised her. The sight
recalled their last meeting and its painful termination, and therefore he
had omitted to attract Frau Katharina's attention to her immediately.
But, ere Kuni disappeared, he had repaired the oversight, and both
desired to ascertain the fate of their former charge. True, the wish
could not be instantly fulfilled, for Lienhard's time and strength were
wholly claimed by the mission intrusted to him by the Emperor and the
Council.
The next afternoon Kuni ascended the rope to the steeple in the presence
of many princes and dignitaries. Firmly as ever she moved along the rope
stretched through the wooden stay behind her, holding the balancing pole
as she went. The clapping of hands and shouts of applause with which the
crowd greeted "the flying maiden" led her to kiss her hand to the right
and the left, and bow to the stand which had been erected for the crowned
heads, counts, nobles, and their wives. In doing so, she looked down at
the aristocratic spectators to ascertain whether the Emperor and one
other were among them. In spite of the height of the topmost window of
the steeple where she stood, her keen eyes showed her that Maximilian's
seat was still vacant. As it was hung with purple draperies and richly
garlanded, the monarch was evidently expected. This pleased her, and her
heart throbbed faster as she saw on the stand all the nobles who were
entitled to admittance to the lists of a tournament, and, in the front
row, the man whose presence she most desired. At Lienhard's right sat
his dazzlingly beautiful wife, adorned with plumes and the most superb
gold ornaments; at his left was a maiden of extremely peculiar charm.
According to years she was still a child, but her delicate, mobile
features had a mature expression, which sometimes gave her a precocious
air of superiority. The cut of her white robe and the little laurel
wreath on her brown curls reminded Kuni of the pagan Genius on an ancient
work of marble which she had seen in Verona. Neither the girl's age nor
her light, airy costume harmonized with her surroundings; for the maids
and matrons near her were all far beyond childhood, and wore the richest
holiday costumes of heavy brocades and velvets. The huge puffs on the
upper part of the sleeves touched the cheeks of many of the wearers, and
the lace ruffs on the stiff collars rendered it easy, it is true, to
maintain their aristocratic, haughty dignity, but prevented any free,
swift movement.
The young girl who, as Kuni afterward learned, was the daughter of Conrad
Peutinger, of Augsburg, whom she had again seen that day in The Blue
Pike, was then eleven years old. She was sometimes thought to be fifteen
or even sixteen; her mobile face did not retain the same expression a
single instant. When the smile which gave her a childlike appearance
vanished, and any earnest feeling stirred her soul, she really resembled
a mature maiden. What a brilliant, versatile intellect must animate this
remarkable creature! Lienhard, shrewd and highly educated as he was,
seemed to be completely absorbed in his neighbour; nay, in his animated
conversation with her he entirely forgot the beautiful wife at his side;
at least, while Kuni looked down at him, he did not bestow a single
glance upon her. Now he shook his finger mischievously at the child, but
he seemed to be seeking, in mingled amusement and perplexity, to find a
fitting answer. And how brightly Lienhard's eyes sparkled as he fairly
hung upon the sweet red lips of the little marvel at his left--the heart
side! A few minutes had sufficed to show the ropedancer all this, and
suggest the question whether it was possible that the most faithful of
husbands would thus basely neglect, for the sake of a child, the young
wife whom he had won in spite of the hardest obstacles, on whose account
he had so coldly and cruelly rejected her, the object of so much wooing,
and who, this very day, was the fairest of all the beautiful ladies who
surrounded her.
In an instant her active mind transported her to the soul of the hitherto
favoured wife of the man whom she loved, and her strangely constituted
woman's heart filled with resentment against the young creature below,
who had not even attained womanhood, and yet seemed to gain, without
effort, the prize for which she had vainly striven with painful longing.
She, whose heart had remained free from jealousy of the woman who stood
between her and the man she loved, like a solid bulwark erected by Fate
itself, was now suddenly overmastered by this passion.
Yet she did not turn against the person to whom Lienhard belonged, as he
did to the city, or to his own family, and who was united to him by the
will of Heaven, but against the mysterious young creature at his side,
who changed with every passing moment.
This child--no, this maiden--must be a being of some special nature.
Like the sirens of whom she had heard, she possessed the mysterious,
enviable power of conquering the iron resistance of even the strongest
man.
Like a flash of lightning, Kuni, whose kind heart cherished resentment
against few and wished no one any evil, suddenly felt an ardent desire to
drive the little witch from Lienhard's side, even by force, if necessary.
Had she held a thunderbolt instead of a balance pole, she would gladly
have struck down the treacherous child from her height--not only because
this enchantress had so quickly won that for which she had vainly
yearned, alas! how long, but because it pierced her very heart to see
Frau Katharina's happiness clouded, nay, perhaps destroyed. A bitterness
usually alien to her light, gay nature had taken possession of her, as,
with the last glance she cast at Lienhard, she saw him bend low over the
child and, with fiery ardour, whisper something which transformed the
delicate pink flush in her cheeks to the hue of the poppy.
Yes, the ropedancer was jealous of the laurel-crowned child. She, who
cared so little for law and duty, virtue and morality, now felt offended,
wounded, tortured by Lienhard's conduct. But there was no time to ponder
over the reason now. She had already delayed too long ere moving
forward.
Yet even calm reflection would not have revealed the right answer to the
problem. How could she have suspected that what stirred her passionate
soul so fiercely was grief at the sight of the man whom she had regarded
as the stronghold of integrity, the possessor of the firmest will, the
soul of inviolable fidelity, succumbing here, before the eyes of all,
like a dissolute weakling, to the seductive arts of an immature kobold?
These two, who gave to her, the orphaned vagrant, surrounded by unbridled
recklessness, physical and mental misery, a proof that there was still in
marriage real love and a happiness secure from every assault, were now,
before her eyes, placing themselves on the same plane with the miserable
couples whom she met everywhere. She could not have expressed her
emotions in words, but she vaguely felt that the world had become poorer,
and that henceforth she must think of something more trivial when she
tried to imagine the pure happiness which mortals are permitted to enjoy.
She had seen the blossoms stripped from the scanty remnant of her faith
in truth and goodness, which had begun to bloom afresh in her heart
through the characters of this pair whose marriage procession she had
watched.
Loni had been beckoning a long time; now he waved his gay handkerchief
still more impatiently, and she moved on.
Her lips forced themselves into the customary smile with difficulty.
Tripping forward was an easy matter for one so free from dizziness. She
only carried the pole because it was customary to begin with the least
difficult feats. Yet, while gracefully placing one foot before the
other, she said to herself--safe as she felt--that, while so much
agitated, she would be wiser not to look down again into the depths
below. She did avoid it, and with a swift run gained the end of the rope
without effort, and went up and down it a second time.
While, on reaching the end of her walk, she was chalking her soles again,
the applause which had accompanied her during her dangerous pilgrimage
still rose to her ears, and came-most loudly of all from the stand where
Lienhard sat among the distinguished spectators. He, too, had clapped
his hands lustily, and shouted, "Bravo!" Never had he beheld any
ropedancer display so much grace, strength, and daring. His modest
protegee had become a magnificently developed woman. How could he have
imagined that the unfortunate young creature whom he had saved from
disgrace would show such courage, such rare skill?
He confided his feelings, and the fact that he knew the artist, to his
young neighbour, but she had turned deadly pale and lowered her eyes.
While looking on she had felt as though she herself was in danger of
falling into the depths. Giddiness had seized her, and her heart, whose
tendency to disease had long awakened the apprehension of the physicians,
contracted convulsively. The sight of a fellow-being hovering in mortal
peril above her head seemed unendurable. Not until she followed
Lienhard's advice and avoided looking up, did she regain her calmness.
Her changeful temperament soon recovered its former cheerfulness, and the
friend at her side to whom the lovely child, with her precocious mental
development, appeared like the fairest marvel, took care, often as he
himself looked upward, that she should be guarded from a second attack of
weakness.
The storm of applause from below, in which Lienhard also joined, fanned
the flames of desire for admiration in Kuni's breast to a fiery glow.
She would show him, too, what she could do--compel him to applaud her.
She would force him away from the little temptress, and oblige him to
gaze up at her whose art--she learned this daily--possessed the power to
fix the attention of spectators like the thrall of the basilisk's eye.
When on the rope she was no insignificant personage. He should tremble
for her as did the gray-haired, scarred captain of the foot soldiers,
Mannsbach, the day before yesterday. He had told her that his heart had
throbbed more anxiously during her daring feats than on the bloodiest
field of battle.
She moved forward more swiftly to the time of the lively dancing tune
which the city pipers were playing. Midway along the rope she turned,
ran back to the cross-shaped trestle at the steeple window, handed the
balancing pole to Loni, and received a cage filled with doves. Each one
bore around its neck a note containing an expression of homage to the
Emperor Maximilian, and they were all trained to alight near the richly
decorated throne which was now occupied by the chivalrous monarch. The
clown who, with a comical show of respect, offered her what she needed
for her next feat, told her this.
Loni, sure of being heard by no unbidden ear, called to her from the
window:
"Art is honoured to-day, my girl."
The clown added jocosely:
"Who else was ever permitted to walk over the anointed head of our lord
the Emperor?"
But Kuni would not have needed such encouragement. Doubtless she felt
flattered by the consciousness of attracting even the sovereign's glance,
but what she intended to do immediately was for the purpose of compelling
another person to watch her steps with fear and admiration. Crossing her
feet, she threw back her garlanded head and drew a long breath. Then she
hastily straightened herself, and with the bird cage in one hand and the
winged staff of Mercury, which the clown had handed to her, in the other,
she advanced to the centre of the rope. There she opened the cage as
steadily as if she had been standing on the floor of her own room. The
birds fluttered through the little door and went, with a swift flight,
directly to their goal. Then, below and beside her, from every place
occupied by spectators, and from hundreds of windows, rose thunders of
applause; but it seemed to her as if the roaring of the surging sea was
in her ears. Her heart throbbed under her pink silk bodice like an iron
hammer, and in the proud consciousness of having probably attained
already what she desired, and, besides thousands of other eyes, fixed
Lienhard's upon her as if with chains and bonds, she was seized with the
ambitious desire to accomplish something still more amazing. The man to
whom her heart clung, the Emperor, the countless multitude below, were
all at this time subject to her in heart and mind. They could think and
feel nothing except what concerned her, her art, and her fate. She could
and would show to Lienhard, to the Emperor, to all, what they had never
witnessed. They should turn faint with sympathizing anxiety. She would
make then realize what genuine art, skill, and daring could accomplish.
Everything else, even the desire for applause, was forgotten. Though her
performance might be called only a perilous feat, she felt it to be true,
genuine art. Her whole soul was merged in the desire to execute, boldly
and yet gracefully, the greatest and most perfect performance attainable
by a ropedancer. With beads of perspiration on her brow, and eyes
uplifted, she threw the cage aside, swung her Mercury staff aloft, and
danced along the rope in waltz time, as though borne by the gods of the
wind. Whirling swiftly around, her slender figure darted in graceful
curves from one end of the narrow path to the other. Then the applause
reached the degree of enthusiastic madness which she desired; even Loni
clapped his hands from the steeple window. She had never seen him do
this to any of the company. Yes, she must have accomplished her purpose
well; but she would show him and the others something still more
wonderful. What she had just done was capable of many additional feats;
she had tried it.
With fluttering hands and pulses she instantly loosed from her panting
bosom and her hips the garland of roses and leaves twined about the upper
portion of her body, and swung it around her in graceful curves as she
knelt and rose on the rope.
She had often jumped rope on the low rope, turning completely around so
that she faced the other way. To repeat this performance on the one
stretched to the steeple would certainly not be expected from her or from
any other. Suppose she should use the garland as a rope and venture to
leap over it on this giddy height? Suppose she should even succeed in
turning around? The rope was firm. If her plan was successful, she
would have accomplished something unprecedented; if she failed--if, while
turning, she lost her balance--her scanty stock of pleasure here below
would be over, and also her great grief and insatiable yearning. One
thing was certain: Lienhard would watch her breathlessly, nay, tremble
for her. Perhaps it was too much to hope that he would mourn her
sincerely, should the leap cost her life; but he would surely pity her,
and he could never forget the moment of the fall, and therefore herself.
Loni would tear the gold circlet from his dyed black locks and, in his
exaggerated manner, call himself a son of misfortune, and her the
greatest artist who had ever trodden the rope. All Augsburg, all the
dignitaries of the realm, even the Emperor, would pity her, and the end
of her life would be as proud and as renowned as that of the chivalrous
hero who dies victor on the stricken field. If the early part of her
life had been insignificant and wretched, its close should be grand and
beautiful.
Long consideration was foreign to Kuni's nature. While these thoughts
were darting with the speed of lightning through her excited brain, she
stripped from the garland, with the presence of mind which her calling
teaches even in serious peril, the roses which might have caught her
feet, and swung it in a wide circle above her. Then nimbly, yet careful
to maintain in every movement the grace without which the most difficult
feat would have seemed to her valueless, she summoned all the strength
and caution she possessed, went forward at a run, and--she did not know
herself just how it was done--dared the leap over the rope once, twice,
and the third and fourth time even accomplished the turn successfully.
It had not once cost her an effort to maintain her balance.
Again she saw Loni clapping his hands at the window, and the acclamations
of the crowd, which echoed like peals of thunder from the lofty, gable-
roofed houses, informed her that the boldness of the venture and the
skill with which she had performed it were appreciated by these
spectators. True, she could not distinguish the voice of any individual,
but she thought she knew that Lienhard was one of those who shouted
"Bravo!" and clapped most loudly. He must have perceived now that she
was something more than a poor thief of a rosary, a useless bread-eater
in the Schurstab household.
She straightened the garland again and, while preparing to take another
run, repeat the feat, and, if her buoyancy held out, try to whirl around
twice, which she had never failed to accomplish on the low rope, she
could not resist the temptation of casting a hasty glance at Lienhard;
she had never ascended to the steeple without looking at him.
Secure of herself, in the glad conciousness of success, she gazed down.
There sat the illustrious Maximilian, still clapping his hands.
Gratefully, yet with a passionate desire for fresh applause, the resolve
to show him the very best which she could accomplish was strengthened.
But the next moment the blood faded from her slightly rouged cheeks, for
Lienhard--was it possible, was it imaginable?--Lienhard Groland was not
looking up at her! Without moving his hands or vouchsafing her a single
glance, he was gazing into the face of the little wearer of the laurel
wreath, with whom he was eagerly talking. He was under her thrall, body
and soul. Yet it could not be, she could not have seen distinctly. She
must look down once more, to correct the error. She did so, and a
torturing anguish seized her heart. He was chatting with the child as
before; nay, with still more warmth. As he now saw nothing which was
happening upon the rope, he had probably also failed to heed what she had
performed, dared, accomplished, mainly for his sake, at the peril of her
life, on the dizzy height. His wife was still clapping her hands at his
side, but Lienhard, as though deaf and blind to everything else, was
gazing at the page which the miserable little elf was just giving him.
There was certainly writing on it--perhaps a charm which rendered him
subject to her. How else could he have brought himself to overlook so
unkindly herself and her art--the best she had to bestow--for the sake of
this child?
Then, besides the keenest sorrow, a fierce, burning hate took possession
of her soul.
She had not appealed to her saint for years; but now, in a brief,
ejaculatory prayer, she besought her to drive this child from Lienhard,
punish her with misery, suffering, and destruction. A sharp pang which
she had never before experienced pierced her to the heart. The pure,
sunny air which she inhaled on her lofty height seemed like acrid smoke,
and forced tears into the eyes which had not wept for many a long day.
As, not knowing exactly what she was doing, with her ears deafened by the
shouts of the crowd, among whom Lienhard now, with anxious suspense,
watched her every movement, she again raised the rope and prepared to
spring, she fancied that her narrow path rose higher and higher. One
more step, and suddenly, with Loui's shriek of horror and the clown's
terrified "Jesus and Mary, she is falling!" ringing on the air, she felt
as if the rope had parted directly in front of her. Then a hurricane
appeared to howl around her, bearing her away she knew not whither. It
seemed as though the tempest had seized the ends of the rope, and was
dealing terrible blows with them upon her shoulders, her back, and her
feet. Meanwhile the little wearer of the wreath was lying on a black
cloud opposite to her at Lienhard's feet.
She still held the sheet in her hand, and was shouting to the angry
elements the magic formulas which it contained. Their power Kuni knew
it--had unchained them. Lienhard's deep voice mingled with her furious
cries until the roar of the sea, on whose rocky shore the hurricane must
have dashed her, drowned every other sound, and rolled over her,
sometimes in scorching crimson, sometimes in icy crystal waves. Then,
for a long time, she saw and heard nothing more.
When her deadened imagination again began to stir, she fancied that she
was struggling with a huge crab, which was cutting her foot with shears.
The little elf was urging it on, as the huntsmen cheer the hounds. The
pain and hate she felt would have been intolerable if Lienhard had made
common cause with the terrible child. But he reproved her conduct, and
even struggled with the kobold who tried to prevent his releasing her
from the crab. The elf proved stronger than he. The terrible shears
continued to torture her. The more she suffered, the more eagerly
Lienhard seemed trying to help her, and this soothed her and blended a
sweet sense of comfort with the burning pain.