An hour after the attack in the court-yard Lydia found herself in a
small room with barred windows lying on a bundle of straw alive with
vermin. She felt a hard bony hand applying a wet cloth to her forehead.
She wished in her gratitude to see who her nurse might be, but the face
which met her look was so repulsive, that terrified she once more
closed her wearied eyelids. "How did I get here?" she asked herself.
Indistinctly she seemed to remember having been jolted in a cart. Once
as she opened her eyes, she had seen groups of horrified citizens
staring up from the street at her. It still appeared to her as in some
dreadful dream that before her stood the terrible tower within the
walls of the Zwinger and that she had been dragged along a dark
passage.
"You seem to think I have nothing else to do than to wait on you," she
heard a coarse gruff voice saying. "You may go at once to the Devil as
far as I am concerned, that would be best for us and you." Therewith
the poor fainting creature was shaken so roughly, that Lydia came back
to her senses and started up terrified. The dirty woman before her
resembled a wicked old dog, having a still more wicked master. One of
her eyes had been knocked out, and the red face bore traces of
continued ill-treatment. "What must I do, what must I do?" sobbed Lydia
vainly endeavoring to break away from the iron gripe of the old woman.
"You must acknowledge, at once acknowledge that you are a witch, for if
once persons of your kind are allowed time to think over things, the
affair drags on twice as long."
"But I am no witch," sighed the wearied child.
"That is what they all say, but did you not go to the Holtermann at
night?"
"Yes," sobbed Lydia.
"You see, you see."
"I wished only ..."
"Only what. We know well what people do who go at night to the
Holtermann. Did you not on the day that the storm which uncovered the
roof, broke loose, draw water from the well at sunrise?"
"Draw water, yes, I did that."
"You see, you see."
"I only wished ..."
"We already know what you wished," croaked the old woman. "Did you not
tell carroty Frances that you practised magic?"
"Never, never," assured Lydia weeping.
"What never, and she says, that you showed her a real rose, which you
plucked from the stone wreath over the gate."
"Ah, that was only a joke."
"A joke ... we will teach you to make such jokes. How often have you
ridden out to the White Stone on a broom?"
"Never, certainly never."
"And to the Auerkopf?"
"Never."
"And never to the hollow Chestnut-tree, Dachsbau, or the Nistler?"
"I swear to you I know nothing about all this."
"I am sorry for you little one," said the old woman, and at that moment
she resembled a snake, taking pity on the terrified rabbit. "You are
such a nice-looking girl. Confess before it is too late. Think only, of
being hung up by a rope and heavy and heavier weights being fastened to
your small feet. Oh! dear, oh! dear, how that hurts. None as yet have
been able to hold out. Think of the suffering and disgrace inflicted
upon you!"
Lydia raised her apron which she bit in mute despair. Her eyes turned
pale with horror. She sat there an image of grief, of madness. She
heard no longer what the old woman kept repeating. A cold shiver shook
her body backwards and forwards. The executioner now himself stepped up
and made indecent remarks to her, which however she did not understand.
At last the old woman got angry and seizing hold of her by the hair,
hauled her up and down: "Confess, you obstinate creature! When did you
attend the black mass?" But Lydia felt it not. "Don't make such a
to-do," said the executioner. "When she is hanging from the rope, it
will all come back to her." Lydia gazed vacantly at him. "Were you not
already known as the bewitched maiden at the Stift?" cried he
furiously.
"Yes I was, I was!" sobbed the poor child overpowered by grief and
fright. "See, she has confessed," said the executioner. "Get out, I
have enough of this whimpering." And he aimed a blow with his keys at
his wife, who obediently quitted the room. Lydia was once more alone,
faintness and weakness deadened her pain, and as the intense heat in
the small cell diminished owing to the torrents of rain which poured
down outside, she fell asleep. When she awoke with a start out of her
lethargy, she heard the bells of the Holy Ghost chime the midnight
hour. Her head felt dazed. The examination made by those two horrible
creatures entirely confused her mind. The confidence with which she had
been told that she was guilty, had bewildered her. She could herself
scarcely think, but that through her own guilt she had fallen into such
profound wretchedness. Her going to the Holtermann now appeared to her
in the light of a terrible crime. Had she not in fact sat near the
witch, and perhaps the Wicked One had obtained power over her. Had she
not once dreamt, that she was travelling through the air from the
Holtermann to the Castle, and had plainly seen the illuminated windows
of the town before her? What, if she in her sleep without being aware
of it had through the power of the Evil One, been in reality obliged to
ride to the witches' meeting, as many walk about in their sleep during
the full moon and on the following morning know nothing about it? Had
she been the means of producing the storm, through the Devil putting it
into her head to draw water out of the brook at a momentous hour of the
morning? Who could know what the relation of this deep well was to the
clouds? And had she not in reality spoken in a very heedless manner,
when she told red-headed Frances that she had plucked Felix's rose out
of the stone wreath? And what a terrible crime it was that amidst the
thunder and lightening, as God's wrath was plainly addressed to her,
she lay in the arms of the artist and allowed his embraces! A terrible
fear came over her. Dreadful thoughts confused her more and more. As
the clock struck one Lydia was convinced, that she was a witch and
determined to confess everything, in that way she might escape the
rack. She knew that she was lost, but she would not suffer herself to
be tortured. "If they will only not ask me who taught me magic, and
commanded me to go to the Holtermann," sighed the poor child. And she
depicted to herself, how finally they would get out of her that it was
Paul. Her terror became boundless. And now it struck two. Then she
felt, that these dreadful thoughts would kill her, if they lasted much
longer. In her distress she began to repeat all the prayers, hymns and
texts, that she knew, and although convulsive fear weighed down her
heart, she nevertheless became more tranquil by this means. At last day
broke, but no one came to her. She heard how life began in the town.
She could explain every sound. The streets re-sounded as ever with
merriment. She heard the boys calling, whistling, singing; she heard
the barking of dogs, the rattling of carriages, the creaking of wheels,
the sound of horses' hoofs, everything went on as usual and no one
thought of her grief. A feeling of great bitterness took possession of
her young heart. Thus little was the friendship of men worth, in the
which her childish mind had so happily believed. How many poor had her
father helped! "What would we do, without the Counsellor?" how often
had she heard these words from Counsellors, beggars, the healthy, the
sick--and now their deliverer sat in the Great Tower, and the people,
could laugh and chat, and the boys whistle that insupportable song
about the all beauteous Gabrielle. About her also they seemed not to
care, and yet they had ever smiled kindly on her as they called her the
pretty Lydia. Felix, he indeed would think of her, but then she had
seen him lying pale with a bleeding head on the stairs, as they tore
her away. Perhaps was he dead, perhaps he also lay in some prison. And
the Kurfuerst and his Princess, who always used to address her so
graciously, when she stood on one side to curtsey to them, could they
give her up under their very eyes to these men! She gazed sadly up
through her barred windows at the deep blue September sky, in which the
long silver summer threads waved about finally to be caught in the
bars. Till yet she had childishly imagined her father and herself to be
important items in the minds of their fellow citizens. Now it dawned
upon her, that not only she herself with her youthful beauty and her
cheerful smile, but that even her serious father with all his ability
and wisdom could be taken away from this bustle, and the people would
live on just the same as ever. With one blow were all the lights
extinguished, in which the world had to her unexperienced youth
formerly shone. The childish expression was gone from her face, one
single hour had stamped in its place the earnest look of experienced
womanhood. But there was nothing dark in this seriousness. Her gentle,
modest feelings had now obtained the victory over the bitterness of her
heart. "Hast thou not also," said she to herself, "made fun and noise,
sung and laughed in the Castle gardens without giving one single
thought to the poor prisoners languishing behind their iron bars? Could
any man rejoice in life for a single instant, if he were always
thinking of those to whom at that instant some wrong were happening
...? But for the future I will think about it. I will strive daily,
that as much happiness may be around me, as I can obtain by opposing
sorrow, I will take the part of all who may be innocent and defend
them, even if appearances be against them, and will tell them what
happened to me. But art thou indeed innocent?" Again she returned to
the question of the previous night, as to whether she were really
guilty? But the dark thoughts of night time disappeared before the
clear light of the September sun, which poured like gold within the
prison window. She had acted foolishly, carried away by passion, but
had done nothing which deserved such a punishment. And then the hope
returned to her, that God who had freed her from the dark vault of the
Michael's church, when no one knew about her, would not surrender her
up now to the Wicked One, in whose power she had fallen through that
wicked nightly expedition. Perhaps old Father Werner would find the
right way to her again, he, or Frau Belier, or the Lady Abbess, or the
Kurfuerst himself. With a fixed determination to strengthen herself for
the struggle she was about to undergo, she ate some of the bread which
lay near the window, and drank some water out of the pitcher near by.
Then with full confidence in God she looked out through the bars, and
felt convinced that the Miller from the Kreuzweg would come again
this time with his redheaded boy, or some other faithful friend.
Nevertheless a shudder crept over her when she at last heard at
mid-day a heavy tread, and the key turned creaking in the door. The
dirtily dressed one-eyed old woman entered. This time however she asked
cringingly and submissively how it fared with the poor young lady.
However little inclined Lydia might feel to heed the ugly creature, she
was certain that something must have come to pass which the old woman
kept back. Finally it came out, the Kurfuerst had ordered Lydia to be
taken to the Great Tower and therefore she must bid farewell to the
poor prisoner, for whom she felt so hearty a sympathy. The young lady
would, she hoped, mention how kind and gentle she and Master Ulrich had
been towards her. Her trial was not yet at an end, and if she blackened
Master Ulrich's character, he would repay her for it should she ever be
brought to the rack. Lydia let the horrible woman talk on without
herself answering. But when however her faithful Barbara appeared, she
sank into the arms of her old nurse and comforting tears dispelled half
her sorrows. The old nurse was herself half dead through fear, for
Master Ulrich had likewise explained and impressed on her, that she
also might likewise be accused of being a witch, for not preventing her
young mistress from practising witchcraft. Still trembling with fright
the faithful soul had great trouble in arranging her young mistress'
dress and hair. Finally Lydia was ready and after that Barbara had
thrown a scarf around her, she prepared to follow the police-officer to
the Castle. At the door stood Master Ulrich with his bundle of keys:
"In three days, young lady," he said with a wicked look, "we shall meet
again. The commission on witchcraft always holds its sessions here, for
the gentlemen can never do long without me, so beware of your tongue.
And even if you escape this time, remember, that the next person that I
string up to force out the names of her accomplices, may name you;
sooner or later will you be here again. I say nothing more, you will
yourself know what is best for you."
Klytia passed on in silence. Outside the officer looked at her in a
kindly manner. "Be of good cheer, young lady," he said. "His Gracious
Highness has ordered that you should be taken to your father in the
tower, and I think the good Counsellor will himself not remain long
there. Our Lord God can permit the ravings of the Italians for a while,
but in the end he will not abandon his own." Lydia sobbed. "Only to be
with my father, that is all that I wished yesterday." If no other way
of coming to him existed than through the Witches' Tower, then her
terrible night was none too high a price. She dried her eyes with the
determination to be truly grateful and content, and not to mention her
terrible experiences, in order not to add to the sorrows of the already
overwhelmed man.
At the same moment that Lydia wearied and ill, tottered up the
Schlossberg, mostly leaning on the arm of her still weeping servant,
Erastus sat in a well-secured room in the Great Tower and gazed out
through his barred window at the ruins of the old Castle, now gleaming
in the golden rays of the evening sun. There the Count Palatines had
been wont to hurl down the eastern or western slopes of the Jettenbuehl
their spiritual or mundane enemies. They had ever boasted that they
feared neither the curses of the Bishops nor the excommunications of
the Popes. Now they lived in the proud Castle lower down, but the enemy
had crept within the fort itself, secret Jesuits and calvinistic
notables sowed the seed of Church dissension and formed the strange
combinations which finally must ruin the country. "One side has never
recognized religious peace, the other does its best to hinder its
blessings within the Palatinate, the end can only be blood and misery?
Thou beauteous Palatinate! what Guises and Albas await thee. It seems
to me as if I heard the roarings of the cataract which hurries our
little bark to its destruction, whilst the crew quarrel among
themselves." Such were the thoughts thronging through the imprisoned
statesman's head, as he looked out over the tops of the chestnut trees
at the old Waldburg, the former cradle of the Counts Palatine.
His hand played in the meantime with a bundle of papers, whose
official character was marked out by the blue and white tape of the
Chancellory of the Palatinate. Eventually he opened and read them. An
ironical smile played over his lips. "General of the Arians and
Commander-in-chief of the Devil's hosts, I am advancing in my career of
Antichrist;" and he seized a pen as if to write an answer to this bill
of indictment; but rage suddenly overmastered him, he flung pen and
papers aside. What was the use of answering people who were determined
to destroy him, and made use of forged letters to that end? The former
friendship of the Kurfuerst would protect him from the rack and
ill-treatment, of that he might be certain. His enemies would be well
satisfied by getting rid of him. Banishment would be his fate, he
thought. To create attention by heavy punishments and severe laws was
against the interests of the Church council owing to the weak condition
of Calvinism in Germany, and the physician to whom the whole world was
open felt reconciled at beginning his travels anew. With a feeling of
mingled contempt and disgust he threw down the papers after throwing a
cursory glance over them. He, the faithful Zwingliite, to be accused of
having founded a conspiracy to make the Pfalz unitarian, or as the
Gentlemen of the Church Council chose to express it, mahommedan.
"Because all the heads of the Unitarians, Servetus, Blandrata, Socinus,
were physicians, naturally the physician Erastus must be one also," he
laughed mockingly to himself. "Parsons' logic of the Hogstraten School!
Be contented with my head, but the satisfaction of praying for mercy,
will I never grant to either Olevianus or Ursinus.... They wished to
extract on the rack from the weakminded fugitives, an account of my
opinions," he added shaking his head, "thus are they all these lowly
men of God."
As far as he himself was concerned the matter was at an end, but
anxiety for Lydia weighed heavily upon him. How could his child, the
darling of his heart, have been drawn into all these horrors? Through
what devilish arts could the Jesuit have succeeded in enticing the
modest child to the cross-roads at a late hour of the evening? This
childishly heedless action might have the most severe consequences for
his child should the witches name her as one of their number, and what
a satisfaction it would be for the members of the Church Council to
apply Church discipline on Erastus' daughter and place her before the
entire congregation on the penitent sinner's stool. Perhaps that might
not be enough. What if the old Sibylla, whom he had often harshly
rebuked for dabbling in medicine, revenged herself on him, by likewise
accusing Lydia of sorcery. He did not dare carry on such a train of
thought. Such an accusation was a double danger to such a beauteous
girl as Lydia. This was the cause why sleep fled from the prisoner, why
he restlessly paced up and down his room from morning till evening, why
he had petitioned the Kurfuerst through the jailer of the prison to
suffer him to have an interview with his daughter. As sadly watching
the sun setting behind the empurpled mountains near Worms, he was
aroused out of his sad reveries by a noise in the corridor. A key
turned, the door was opened, and the jailer appeared with his servant,
to make ready another bed in the room. "What means this," said Erastus
astonished.
"Another prisoner is to be brought here," replied the attendant
surlily.
"I am to be spied upon by night and by day," thought Erastus. "Herr
Hartmann may remain tranquil on that score, I am not in the habit of
talking in my sleep. But Heaven only knows what witnesses they may be
instructing in this wise against me. Forged letters do not seem
satisfactory. It would be more comfortable for these gentlemen, if I
confessed mahommedanism by word of mouth. Let it be--even in the
account of the Passion it is said 'and they brought false witnesses
against Him, but not even so did their witness agree together.'"
Again steps approached. His fellow prisoner was being brought in.
Erastus turned to the window. His intention was not to exchange a word
with the man who was placed as a spy upon him; thereby it would be all
the harder for the members of the Council to twist his opinions, if he
had not wasted a single word on their spy.
"Here," said the jailer to the new-comer, and the door was shut to
heavily. Immediately Erastus felt himself embraced by delicate female
arms. "Father, dear father," he heard as if an angel's voice murmured
in his ear. He turned around and Lydia nestled to his heart. In his joy
he raised his arms as if to enfold her to himself; but stepped
backwards.
"What took thee to the Holtermann?" he asked in a stern voice. She
looked up into his face with an honest gaze.
"Father I did not wish any evil, or do any evil. I let myself be
enticed thither by the message of the Italian clergyman, which thou
hast already heard about, but found nobody there but the herb picking
woman, and because I disturbed her in her witch's work, she turned
three wretches loose on me, who hunted me down, so that I fell into the
Heidenloch. Father Werner found me there, he brought me in spite of a
broken foot home again, the good true man!"
Never before in his whole lifetime had the pure clear eyes of his
daughter been such a comfort to him as at that present moment. Words
were not necessary, it was plainly legible in this childish look that
Lydia had no conception of the wickedness which she was otherwise said
to have committed. Consoled he drew her to his heart.
"The Kurfuerst has then permitted thee to keep me company, my poor
scared bird," said Erastus tenderly stroking the maiden's fair hair.
"How pale and ill thou dost look after all thy fright."
Lydia did not contradict her father. If he only would believe that she
was there to keep him company. But Erastus was horrified, as he noticed
after a closer look at his only treasure, the feverishly red cheeks of
his child and counted her rapidly beating and tremulous pulse. "Lie
down Lydia, thou requirest rest," he said gravely, "an illness seems to
be coming on." The poor child obeyed. But however carefully the
physician avoided disturbing her, sleep would not come to her. Finally
she determined, as her father must in course of time learn what took
place, to relieve her heart. Mute and cold did the bowed down father
listen to the account given by his weeping maiden.
"They are learned in the old dispensation," he said to himself, "they
root out their enemies with their entire seed." Then he stooped over
Lydia and kissed her pure forehead. "That thou art here my child," he
said gently to her, "proves the Kurfuerst's favour. Should wickedness
however obtain the mastery, we shall die united."
Lydia tenderly wound her arms round his neck and after having heartily
kissed her father she fell into a deep sound sleep, whilst the
physician moved to his heart's core lay still on his couch, thinking to
whom he might apply, to remove his child out of the reach of that
dreadful man. "If however there is no escape, she must from the outset
at the first examination declare herself guilty," Erastus concluded in
silence, "thus she will escape at least the disgrace and torture of the
rack. God of Justice, forgive us this negation of the truth. We are too
weak, to withstand this temptation ... I acknowledge thy handiwork," he
added in deep grief "Thou wouldest free me from my error by bitter
means." Thus spake the prisoner full of repentance, for he had himself
in a firm belief in allegiance to the devil, and witchcraft, written a
book on the Influences of Demons, and sanctioned the violence of the
authorities, alas that he could not recall it. "Let it be to thee, as
thou hast said." And the strong man pressed his face to his pillow and
wept bitterly.
After a while he fancied he heard hammering and the sound of a chisel
on the outside wall. For a time all was still and then it began anew.
He rose quietly so as not to wake Lydia and stepped up to the window.
He was right, it was no deception, the knocking began again and this
time seemed much closer. But the wall was too thick, he could only have
looked out by creeping over to the ledge of the window. His heart beat
with expectation. He had friends after all who worked to set him free.
After a time it seemed to him as if he heard whispering near his
window. But the whispering ceased on his opening the casement. Still he
heard the breaking away of small stones from the wall, and could
plainly distinguish two voices below; then all was again quiet and his
attentive ear only heard the nightwind howling round the thick Tower,
and the knotty branches of the old chestnuts as they creaked and
groaned. Shivering the disappointed prisoner returned to his bed,
utterly uncertain whether he would dare venture on an attempt at
flight, if on the morrow an occasion presented itself. On his own
account he would never have done so, but on account of the danger to
which his child was exposed, he would have willingly exposed himself to
the calumny of his enemies, in case Lydia could only escape the widely
extended jaws of the horrible monster who had already seized her with
his claws. He listened for a long time on his couch, as sleep had
forsaken him, to hear whether the knocking were renewed, but he heard
nothing but the sighing of the wind as it died away. At every blast the
valley re-echoed the deep and melancholy moan, with which the old trees
answered the wind, and then the howling of the storm sank into a low
wail, as the human heart consorts its own grief with outer nature, so
did these sounds resemble to the prisoner in the Tower the agonized
screams of some poor wretch undergoing the torture, from whom the first
torments call forth wild shrieks, but who in the end is only able to
moan in a low tone. The night had already given way to the pale light
of the approaching day, as finally a heavy sleep took pity on the
sorely tried father.