Slowly was the patient of the gable-house moving towards convalescence.
His wounds still smarted, and any motion caused him pain, but he bore
all his sufferings with the greatest composure, and to his brother's
inquiry he answered with a grateful look: "_Sta bene._" Klytia also who
continued to nurse him with a certain diffidence, he ever greeted with
a look of deep gratitude. In the weak condition in which he now found
himself all natural passion, force of character, and love of the
artificial seemed to have left him; he was kinder and more simple than
he had ever been before; fictitiousness, nonsense and bombast had
fallen away from him. The brilliant personality of the Italian savant,
which spreads a shimmer of eloquence over the most unimportant theme,
and loves to express epigrammatically the most common place subject,
had been replaced by a poor suffering man. He was no longer the _primus
omnium_ of the college at Venice whose mouth overflowed with wisdom.
Rather was there something childlike in his helplessness. He modestly
held back, although all interest was centred on him. His gratitude for
any attention, his respect for Belier's and Erastus' learning, his
unassuming attention caused him to resemble a mere boy. Now only could
one perceive how young he really was. When Frau Belier passionately
exclaimed at the sight of his wounds he meekly answered: "I wished to
do the same to others, who were better than I, noble Lady, and whose
sins were less clear of proof than mine." He took part in conversation
only when directly questioned, but listened eagerly when Erastus or
Belier discussed Church matters, or when Felix and the mistress of the
house violently argued about nothing, whilst Lydia quietly glided
through the room like a sunbeam and by her noiseless activity gave to
the whole a tone of beauty and individual coloring. When Paul at last
supported by Erastus and his brother was led to an armchair and thus
enabled to join for hours the family circle, they all expected that his
former originality and mental superiority would show itself once again.
But he remained silent, gentle and as if apparently inwardly crushed.
This resignation on the part of his brother finally appeared serious to
Felix. It was something so utterly opposed to the fiery disposition of
the young artist that he said to himself: "His limbs will be cured, of
that Erastus is certain, but his nature is broken, like those of the
few victims of the inquisition I saw in Rome, who were suffered to
return to public life."
"I do not like to see thee so wise and genuine," he said one day to
Paul, as the family were expending their wrath on the subject of some
fresh molestation on the part of the Theologians, whilst Paul
endeavored kindly and quietly to place their intentions in a better
light. "It seems as if thou couldest no longer punish evil."
"That may be the case," answered the sick man. "I see no crime
committed that I myself might not have committed. What should our
failings teach us, but charity towards others?"
Klytia herself had become another person, since Paul had so retired
within himself. Quiet and reserved she went her way. She seemed to be
satisfied with being able to serve him, to provide for all things, but
the joyous childish smile had left her face. Felix who was working at
her marble bust, found, when she sat for him, a melancholy trait in her
reverie, which had formerly not existed. "She looks like some young
widow, who mournfully ponders over her departed joy. But I will
soon rouse the foolish children out of their unbearable reserve and
self-sacrifice." One day that he found his brother sitting alone near
the window of his oaken-panelled room, gazing with longing look out of
the diamond panes over the gables of the houses towards the
Heiligenberg, as if counting each individual pine, which seemed to
detach itself from the white clouds behind, the opportunity appeared
favorable to the artist.
"Thou must be digging out a new philosophy, Paolo," he said laughing,
"that thou gazest up for hours at the blue October sky."
"I see no necessity for one," replied Paul wearily. "Resignation is
true philosophy and life itself teaches us that."
"Why must thou be resigned? Thou seemest to have made a pact with Lydia
of mutual self-sacrifice."
A flaming color spread suddenly over the patient's pale face. "Why dost
thou hide thyself behind the clouds, thou love-sick Apollo, and
sufferest thy flower to mourn? Must I take her by the hand and lead her
to thee?"
Paul made a motion of grief. "Thou would'st sacrifice thyself, my good
Felix," he cried, "but how could I accept such a sacrifice?"
"Sacrifice," said the Maestro, merrily cocking his Raphael cap to one
side. "We artists are terrible sinners. Since I have modelled the pure
face, since I have caught the determined look on her lips and have
spitted it in marble, like a butterfly stuck through with a pin, my
heart has as much abandoned her as any other model with which I have
succeeded, and it seems to me as if I had almost too much of the dear
child. I dream of a less gentle, less pliant being, allotted to me by
heaven, a Neapolitan woman with hooked nose, black eyes, and sharp
claws at the end of her forepaws. In a word I will paint Lydia on a
church banner for the Scalzi, but will as soon marry her as the
Madonna. I want a wife with whom I can quarrel."
Paul shook his head sadly: "Even if that were the case, how can one
tainted by suspicion, a racked cripple, a walking corpse stretch out
his arms towards this young sweet life? It would indeed be a crime."
At that minute a young pale head bowed down over him, fresh warm lips
were fastened on his pale mouth. "I will never nurse any but this
patient," she said in a low trembling voice.
"Lydia," cried Paolo in his delight. "Thou art willing to bind thy
happy destiny to that of a cripple?"
"I shall make him once more as healthy and frolicsome as the squirrel
on the tops of the trees," joyously laughed Klytia. A sunbeam of joy
passed over the face of the pale man. The artist retired however to his
studio, turned the marble bust with its face to the wall, and began
assiduously to work at the facade of Herr Belier's future house.
"Hast thou in truth chosen the Papist, the stranger as the companion of
thy life-time?" asked Erastus with a grave shake of the head, as Klytia
with her arm wound round Paul announced her determination to her
father.
"His land shall be my land and his God shall be my God," replied Klytia
with an inward joy, which Erastus knew he could not oppose.
"I did not wish to mix the things of this world with those of another,"
now said Paul modestly, "otherwise I should have told you that I cannot
return to the old Communion. Before this I used to rage against your
church, which broke down the altars, and laid waste the sacred places;
but you have one great advantage over us, you have no slaves. Moreover
dogma has no longer for me the same importance that it used to have.
Each of us strove after the right doctrine, but who can tell in this
day of shattering of opinions and ideas what the right doctrine may be?
You persecuted the Baptists and Arians owing to true principles. The
Calvinists persecuted you, the Palatines hate both Zwingliites and
Lutherans. I however hated all Baptists, Zwingliites, Lutherans and
Calvinists. We have all steeped our hands in blood in honor of that God
who said to us: 'thou shalt not kill.' If we continue in this way, soon
in this beauteous land the groans of the tortured and the blood of the
slain will cry to heaven as in the Netherlands and in France, and what
that may mean, is only known to one who may have experienced it on his
own body. One must have looked the most terrible death in the face, to
be convinced, how small in reality is the belief for the which we are
ready to die. As lately I was pondering over in my prison: Who can
indeed possess a certain and sure promise of the Spirit, that his
doctrine is of God, where then in the ocean of deceit is the safe rock
on which we may take a firm foothold? The words of a heretic whom I
formerly deeply despised came uppermost to me. That Baptist whom you
yourself know. 'The Spirit,' he cried once to me, 'exists not outwardly
in dogma and in _cultus_, but only in the life. Then only does it
appear in that one sees, feels and hears it. We know more certainly the
right that should be done, than the right that should be taught.
Therefore true belief is this, that you do the will of God, not that
you revolve principles of dogma concerning things invisible which are
not of man but of God.' At that time I covered my ears with my hands,
so as not to hear such blasphemous arguments, but they came back to me
in the stillness of the prison. When the witch acknowledged that she
had never seen the devil, for the which we burnt her, the idea stirred
me to the roots of my heart, for what uncertainties we often commit a
certain wrong. All our errors arise from our thinking too much of God's
honor, too little of his law, speak too much of the invisible world,
too little of the visible. We were pious because we murdered for the
sake of another world; we were pleasing in God's sight because for the
other world we lied, deceived and led men astray, and because we made
our love of power and right the affair of the Deity, all our other sins
should therefore be pardoned. Our care for that unknown world has led
us to despise this visible one. To become angels in heaven, we were
ravening wolves on earth. Only when I thought over the word which the
heretic had called out to me: 'The spirit is nowhere visible but in the
life,' then only did the scales fall from my eyes, and I determined to
commit the doctrines of God into God's own hands, and to do in this
life, what he had plainly revealed to me in heart and by word."
Erastus returned no answer, as Herr Belier came in with Xylander who
wished to greet Erastus. After a time they were joined by Felix, who
within the last few days had looked less cheerful than usual. "Our
friend would leave us," said the Huguenot. "He goes first to Innsbruck
to visit Master Colins and then returns to Naples. In vain I have
begged him to renounce papistry; he declares that he will not cut
himself off from his people, and that art-loving Italy will never raise
itself to our worship of God in Spirit and in Truth."
"You are right," said Erastus kindly. "We cannot make use of the Papal
Church as it now is and the Italians cannot use our churches as they
now are. It is sufficient for us to think out our thoughts and to act
accordingly, the Italians wish them represented before them sensuously.
Perhaps the time may come when this dissonance solves itself into a
higher harmony, as Lydia once said, in which the white surplices and
black gowns will be as much things of the past as are to-day Garizim
und Moriah, or the disputes of the Levites and Samaritans, nevertheless
I fear that the day is much further off than Lydia thinks. But we have
indeed the promises of a time, when there will be no temple and no
priest and I believe that the world will give a sigh of relief when the
last Theologian has been buried." "I should myself like to be standing
by that grave," said Xylander vivaciously. "I would place with this
humanitarian all the implements with which he worked, his symbolical
books, bishops' mitres, pitch torches, the pears of torture, and a bit
of Sylvan's bloody shirt which was wickedly sent to me on the day after
the poor man's death. They would trumpet in the next world that Kalchas
and Teiresias, Augurs and Haruspices were soft-hearted fellows in
comparison with those who came after them. When I consider the amount
of blood that has been shed since the days of Constantine to the
present time, I wish that a Church had never existed!" "No," replied
Erastus, "it was not my meaning that we should overthrow the Church
because the priests do not satisfy us. That would be like tearing down
a house, because the owner was not popular. We must only place it in
other hands, rule it in a different manner, and for this reform, which
is so necessary, I know of no better fundamental doctrine than that,
which Magister Paul intends to preach for the future, that the Spirit
exists only outwardly in one way, and that is in the Life."
"I hope sincerely," said Felix turning to his brother, "that thou are
not serious in wishing to spend thy days in misery in this land of
fogs, and in cold churches without music, to waste thy life full of
hope in fruitless preachings unaided by art? No, come with me. Thou art
an Italian and can'st not live without the aesthetic, and if thou
remainest, wilt soon enough have to sing out the _super flumina
Babylonis_."
"No Felix," said Paul in a determined tone. "As the choice lies open to
me: rather no music, no pictures, not even laurel hedges and gardens of
the Hesperides, than any return to the old pool of sulphur."
"And dost thou really wish to die a Calvinistic preacher?"
Paul was silent for a while, then modestly answered: "The moment I
regained my consciousness I said daily to myself: Away with the cowl. A
profession which requires us to appear better than other men, easily
renders us much worse. Moreover I felt, that after the miseries which I
have survived, many a temptation is left behind--and finally what
otherwise should I become, dost thou think?"
"Teacher, Magister, Doctor," enumerated the artist quickly.
"I have experienced too much that is serious to be anything else than a
preacher. Shall I mend up the mutilated verses of old poets? or tinker
together the fragments of some forgotten sophist? or pile up some other
learned dung-heap? Whosoever has experienced what I have, can no longer
choose the embellishments of life as the centre of his existence. My
thoughts cleave to the core of life, bitter as it may be; that will I
make the substance of my labours. I will beg the Kurfuerst to appoint me
to some quiet parish, hidden away in the furthermost wooded valley of
his dominions. There I will teach children to fold their little hands,
advise parents how to guard their children's hearts, strengthen
husbands and wives in their good intentions, sustain the weak, guide
the erring into the ways of peace. And if I have watched over the
smallest congregation in this land like a good shepherd, so that it
returns after my preaching happier and better qualified to the work and
burden of life, finding itself more reconciled and meek under trials,
comforted in all sorrow, then I will have a fuller certainty that my
life has not been lived in vain, than if boys were reading my edition
of the poets, or doctors naming a dogma after me. I do not wish to be
renowned but forgotten. The children and the neighbours only will know
of me, and I feel certain that my bride longs for such a modest
existence."
Klytia leant tenderly over him and gazed into his eyes, Felix alone did
not seem to approve that the end of such a great beginning should be a
hidden Hyperborean village. The Magister however leant his hand
affectionately on his brother's shoulder and said: "My good Felix, be
assured that the Parson Paul will be a happier man than ever the
Magister Laurenzano was, and the fame of our noble race may be safely
entrusted to thy artistic hands."
"See the creation of our new Michel Angelo," cried Herr Belier,
unfolding a plan of the new house which was to replace the old gable
house on the market. A shout of delight escaped them all.
"How grandly story is piled on story," said Erastus, "up to the proud
gable, which shows the world the armour in the which our valiant friend
fought so stoutly. And here is the shield of the Beliers and the
faithful portrait of our host."
"_Mon Dieu_!" cried the little woman, "there is even my poor parrot on
my wrist. The sacrificial lamb which redeemed the blood from our
house."
"Here, Herr Belier," said the delighted Felix, "have I left an empty
frieze for you to add in your device."
"Be that the artist's part," replied the chivalrous Huguenot. Felix
bent his head thoughtfully and casting a loving look at Klytia, mindful
of his brother's hard won fortune, he gaily seized the pencil and wrote
in large letters: "_Perstat invicta Venus_!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Wegewarte, Chicory (Cichorium Intybus z).]
[Footnote 2: A play on the name, here meaning quarrelsome.]
[Footnote 3: Nothing at all.]
[Footnote 4: Eryngo.]
THE END.