NINE DAYS’ WONDER!
“Monstrous!”
“Go and tell such tales to your grandmother!”
“Preposterous! Rubbish! Lies! Papperlapapp!”
Such were a few of that variety of comment uttered by the Strassburgers
when the news spread abroad, as soon it did like wildfire, that
Professor Dasipodius, the maker of their new Horologe, was blind.
Everybody made it the subject of conversation. Tradesmen and
apprentices canvassed it open-mouthed at their booths; fine ladies
paying calls discussed it, and said in the same breath: “Ah—dear,
the pity of it,” and they did not believe it one bit. Such heavenly
eyes—oh! absurd! No! House-mothers shook their heads, and sighed
“Poor dear young man!” and for the first time in their lives, were
thankful to think he was no son of theirs. Others maintained that the
tale was not to be credited for an instant, and had only been got up
to suit some party purposes or other. Heaven knew there were enough
of them flying about the city; but many conceded the possibility; for
it was well known that the devil never stood at anything when he had
the faintest notion of being able to entrap a soul; and no one could
gainsay that the mathematician, with his deep knowledge of the curious
sciences, must be singularly available. Truly, said the Catholics,
Dasipodius was a child of Holy Church, and went regularly to mass,
and to allow each his due, was more liberal in alms-giving and divers
secret good work beside, than many who fasted on barley bread and water
twice a week without fail, and were otherwise more strictly orthodox.
Still, when was Dasipodius ever heard disputing to edification with the
Anabaptists, or insisting on the spotless purity and integrity of the
Vatican proceedings, as it behoved every one in these perilous times,
who owned a clever brain and an eloquent tongue? It was whispered,
moreover, that the Professor Dasipodius was heretically tainted. He
had been known to quote Erasmus more than once, and openly from his
professorial chair, to have expressed admiration for some of that
reasonable person’s writings.
On the other hand, flames of eloquence had been employed to bring
Dasipodius over to Calvin’s conception of a beneficent Providence, and
to impress him with a sense of the power of that irresistible grace
which doomed Servetus to the flames; but he was not to be charmed.
Then Zwinglius had made a snatch at this brand from popery’s burning
Gehenna; and the orthodox Lutherans had plied his order-loving nature
with much fair argument, but each had failed to influence Dasipodius;
and if they agreed on no other point, all shared in the opinion that
it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for mathematicians to be made into children of grace; and were full
of dudgeon against this man, who having lent their arguments silent
courteous attention, asked them when they had done, why they made
confusion worse confounded by their speculations, instead of enlisting
themselves into the ranks of those who still walked in the old paths,
but were striving as they went to clear from them the garbage and
dust which indolence and neglect had allowed to accumulate there.
Surely that was better than striking out into countless intricate and
dreary by-ways, which ended, some of them, strangely far away from the
Beautiful Gate. And so, with the exception of certain kindred spirits
at the university, who did not possess, and were at little pains to
lay claim to much voice in the existing ruling of matters social and
political in the city, the Professor Dasipodius owned no party friends
against his hour of difficulty. It was not possible, in days when the
multitude thought of little else than of theological disputation, and
had small opinion of a man who did not mix himself up with all their
speculations as to whether one must pay down alarming sums in hard
cash for one poor hope of eternal happiness, or whether he might not
gratuitously commit every abominable crime it suited him in this world,
and then be made much of in the next.
It is true that Dasipodius possessed the general good-will and respect
of Strassburg, as a clever useful man against whom no gross moral
accusation could be brought; but such negative virtues would stand for
little in face of this startling charge which had risen up against
him. The stakes were as yet smouldering from the fires which had burned
men and women for witchcraft and magic; and the protestant religionist
made no more scruple of doing away with human life, than his catholic
brother had done, so that judged by the one or the other, or both, as
was most likely would be the case, Dasipodius stood in no small peril.
Within the last year or two, the violence of the contending sects had
brought about their own downfall from the higher places. Peace-loving
folks, unable longer to endure the strife of tongues, had sought refuge
in the old ruling; and while Anabaptists ran naked and howling about
the woods to propitiate the High God, the Host stood once again upon
the Cathedral altar; and once more the Bishop ruled from his palace.
To possess the esteem and friendship of Bishop John of Manderscheid,
as Dasipodius did, could not but be regarded as a high privilege.
One and all were constrained to acknowledge that he was just and
gentle-hearted; and of his mental qualifications, it sufficed to
remember when and where he ruled, to set them at something of their
true value; but the most bigoted of both sides had their grudges
against this man who set his face against extreme measures, and refused
to anathematise any party. To this large majority _a via media_ was
hateful; the moderationist of the new University was looked askance
upon for want of zeal in matters spiritual, while it was known that the
Bishop had the place’s interests deeply at heart; and of all who taught
or learned within its walls, he cared for none so well as he did for
Conrad Dasipodius.
This very regard, however, was likely more to damage than to shield
Dasipodius in the impending crisis. The zealots and the municipality
contained not a few loving to say that the learned prelate would take
the foul fiend, horns and hoofs and all to his bosom, if only he came
in scholar’s cap and gown; but it chanced that just at that identical
time, Bishop John was fifty miles away from Strassburg, engaged in a
pastoral visitation among the villages of his diocese; and there being
in those days no other posts than special messengers, he was likely to
remain till his return, in ignorance of what had occurred.
The really great question was, what would the Town Council say about
it? Individually the Town Council was stricken dumb with astonishment;
but thinking that collectively breath and eloquence might be
regainable, they called a meeting, at which chief Burgomaster Niklaus
von Steinbach was required officially to preside. For once he took his
place reluctantly and in silence; allowing the stormy Babel to say
all it desired, which was not a little. On one point nearly all were
agreed—that if indeed, as there seemed now hardly any doubt, this man
were blind, he deserved to be broken on the wheel, for having so long
led them all by the nose. There was hardly one of that conclave who did
not esteem himself worth a dozen mathematicians, and held it monstrous
to have been hoodwinked. There was a feeling about it which set those
worthy drapers and fishmongers and tanners in a fume of fuss and
indignation, but Niklaus von Steinbach took no part in the discussion.
He only sat silent at the head of the long council table, with his hand
half-shading his face, which bore a strangely troubled and perplexed
expression. But at last, in the very height of the turmoil, he brought
his clenched fist down on the table with a heavy thud, and roaring as
loud as Demosthenes, when he outvoiced the sea waves, said: “Gentlemen,
what we want is fact, not hearsay. Let Master Dasipodius speak for
himself.”
This resolution was put to the vote by a show of hands; and though
there were some dissentients, the ayes carried the day; and the
recorder having spread out a broad sheet of parchment, a citation was
drawn upon it summoning “the Professor Conrad Dasipodius to appear
four days hence at the Chancellery, to answer in person anent certain
rumours——”
“Charges,” amended Master Tobias Hackernagel the syndic. “Charges,
Burgomaster.”
“No,” said the Burgomaster; “no such thing.”
“Libels, perhaps?” suggested Counsellor Frischlein.
“No, Master Frischlein, I think not. It isn’t exactly a libel you see,
to say a man’s blind—hey, Master Recorder?”
“Not without being attended by aggravating circumstances, Burgomaster,”
replied the man of law, patiently holding his pen poised an inch or two
above his parchment.
“Ah, proceed then, Master Recorder—_Certain rumours which have reached
the ears of the Town Council_——”
“Will they be long, Burgomaster?” meekly asked Counsellor Klausewitz,
who had a punctual wife, and heard dinner-time strike.
“Not if I can help it,” said Niklaus. “Go on, Master Recorder—_to the
effect that he has lost the use of his sight_——”
“Otherwise blind,” suggested the lawyer.
“Hang it, yes—if you choose,” testily said Niklaus. “A spade’s a spade,
and Dasipodius isn’t the man to say it isn’t.”
“And of a consequence,” loftily continued Syndic Hackernagel. “Write
‘of a consequence,’ Master Recorder.”
“Consequences make an after consideration,” said Niklaus, taking
the quill from the Recorder’s hand and setting his signature to the
document. “Be pleased to sign your names, gentlemen, and then we can go
home. This place is as stifling as an oven.”
“But I tell you, Burgomaster——” objected Hackernagel.
“By your leave, Master Hackernagel, the clock has struck,” interrupted
the impatient Job.
“And the moral welfare of the city is to be sacrificed to your carnal
appetites!” muttered the Anabaptist, as he scowlingly watched the
Burgomaster place away the citation duly signed and sealed with the
old free city’s insignia, under lock and key, and then with a curt
good-morrow, stride out after his colleagues. “Dumb dogs that ye are!
How long shall the unrighteous prevail—and the saints be made a mock
unto themselves?”
Until recently Tobias Hackernagel had followed the vocation of
fishmonger in Strassburg; but his natural gift for driving exceedingly
lucrative, not to say hard bargains, had enabled him to retire from
trade when not very far advanced beyond middle life. Having made good
provision for himself, the quondam fishmonger turned his attention to
his country, and contrived so entirely to impress people generally
with his own firm conviction that he was no ordinary man, that one
fine day he found himself elevated to nearly the highest point of his
ambition,—syndic, that is to say, of his native city. This desired
consummation he had brought about mainly by a judicious use of his
ready tongue. Whenever he found his chance, Tobias Hackernagel would
talk. What he said signified comparatively little. His custom of using
the long word when there was a long and a short one to choose from,
had won him hosts of admirers; and they would say it was a beautiful
thing indeed to hear Syndic Hackernagel talk. If his education had been
a very third-rate one, his sharp mother-wit atoned to him for much;
and the superficial knowledge he had picked up, he tried to economise
in such a manner, that it went twice as far with the multitude as the
solid acquirements of many a better man.
Physically, even by his most enthusiastic disciples, Syndic Hackernagel
was not esteemed prepossessing. Insignificant in stature, and with
little to speak of as far as eye and brow and chin were concerned,
his nose was of massive aquiline proportions, and vastly proud of
this important feature the syndic was. Not without reason, for it was
most useful to him on state occasions, when his magnificent manner
of applying his handkerchief to it called attention to himself, as
the trumpet call of a herald rivets the senses of all within earshot.
The little fishmonger was in his idiosyncrasies the very antipodes
of Conrad Dasipodius, and Tobias Hackernagel did not love the
mathematician.
That Dasipodius did not reciprocate the negative sentiment, was owing
possibly to the fact that he had never dreamed of spending two thoughts
on him. Tobias had so rarely been thrown in his way. He did not so
much as remember, what the syndic never tired of recalling, a certain
time some years since, when the chiefs of the antinomian sect of which
Tobias was an ardent if circumspect member, had made a fierce effort to
win Dasipodius to their ranks; and the mathematician had frankly told
them it was a form of belief with which not merely he had no sympathy,
but which appeared to him to threaten the bringing Christianity itself
into utmost disrepute.
When the election for the Horologe had taken place, Tobias Hackernagel
had voted for Otto von Steinbach. Otto, as he knew, had good
expectations, and could boast a fine ancestry; while the syndic, who
was not so much as quite sure of his maternal grandfather’s name,
had four daughters—none of them passing fair;—although certainly in
the third of the quartette, Gretchen, some womanly graces, possibly
inherited of her long dead mother, did exist.
As far as the world knew, and had there been anything to tell, it
would probably have been apprised in all decent haste, these ladies
had hitherto received no matrimonial overtures. A father’s leanings
therefore towards an eligible young bachelor like Otto von Steinbach,
against the proud bigoted misogynist of a Dasipodius, is at all events
conceivable. The syndic however, patriot, disinterested protector of
justice, guardian of civic rights, Syndic Tobias the incorruptible,
acknowledged no secondary motives, in upholding, whenever opportunity
presented, the cause of the hare-brained Otto.
Nothing could have better pleased him, take it for all in all, than
this charge which had now got abroad against the mathematician. It
delighted him immeasurably to see how people of all parties, Catholic
and Protestant, differ as they would wherever they could possibly do
so, were unanimous in their denunciations of the suspicion of magical
arts in which they now conceived Dasipodius to be an adept. When
you came, as they said, to consider how mathematics and its kindred
subjects were a pagan invention, things, there was no denying it,
did look suspicious; and many came forward and publicly disburdened
their bosoms of the suspicions they had long nursed, that Dasipodius
was a secret member, and a very powerful one too, of that mysterious
brotherhood of the Caballists. Why, can’t you see, that if making a
clock, and such a clock—without eyes, seeing in the dark—Du Lieber
Himmel! think of it!—was not magic, what was? What a mercy to think his
infirmity had been laid bare at last, before destruction had come upon
the city, for having harboured such iniquity! A Horologe was a nice
useful clever thing undoubtedly, but a thing which at best had about it
a strange weirdness and witchery. It was so marvellous when you came
to think, that a mere combination, you know, of brass and wood should
be able to move, ay, and to speak—in its way, at the bidding of a man,
and of a blind man! Then one great shudder convulsed the city, and the
question flew from mouth to mouth: “What would the Bishop say to this?
My lord, who had always shown Dasipodius such favour!”