THE LAST OF THE GREAT TARNOV CRYSTAL
Joseph and his father were still kneeling when there came unexpectedly a
certain happening that changed the whole complexion of the day. It came
from the alchemist.
He had been listening attentively through all the talk, he had followed
back and forth the give-and-take of conversation, the balancing of
argument, the gestures, the decisions, even though his eyes had seemed
but half open. Just at this final moment he sprang up from his place
behind the others like a dog leaping for a bone, and snatched the Tarnov
Crystal out of the hands of the King.
Gripping it, he rushed like one gone wholly mad straight for the door,
brushing aside a guard who fell back in astonishment.
“Stop him,” cried Jan Kanty, “he will do something desperate.”
They might better have tried to stop the wind. He was through the door
and out on the balcony and down the steps to the court below, where the
guards, though astonished, had yet no pretext for seizing him since he
was an honored guest, one of the party of Jan Kanty. Through the little
entrance to the court he went at top speed, just as the King, the
scepter bearers, and the guards, followed by Pan Andrew and Joseph, with
Jan Kanty behind, raced along the balcony and shouted to the guards
below. These at once set out in pursuit, shouting in turn to guards at
the farther gates. But the alchemist was traveling like a hurricane, and
passing the men at arms at the very entrance to the castle, he was off
down the slope to the meadows below where he swung to the left and bore
toward the spot where the Vistula curves about the base of the Wawel.
Pan Andrew and Joseph continued in pursuit with the guards, but the King
with Jan Kanty, seeing the alchemist’s direction, hurried to the extreme
end of the fortifications where one looks down directly to the river. At
the very water’s edge the alchemist turned and beckoned to his pursuers
to stop, threatening by his motions to throw himself into the current
which at that time of the year was swollen and swift. They paused,
helpless, waiting until he chose to speak.
“Listen,” he cried, gazing first at the pursuing party that stood not
far distant from him on the shore, and then directly upward where Jan
Kanty and the King were leaning over the wall.
A curious figure he presented as he stood there for a moment in silence,
his garments sadly disordered, his hair twitched hither and thither by
the wind, his features working from emotion—the globe of amazing beauty
in his hands.
“Listen!” His voice now rose shrill and screaming. “It was I that stole
the crystal from Pan Andrew. The first sight of it drove honesty from my
head as it has driven honesty from the heads of many who have seen it. I
saw there all that magicians and astrologers of all ages have devoutly
wished for. I saw there the means of working out a great name for
myself, of becoming famous, of becoming envied over all the world. I was
tempted and I fell, but I shall see to it that no more trouble comes
from this accursed stone.”
He paused, overcome by the effort of so much speaking, but in a second a
flood of wild laughter burst from him. “There was the student Tring,” he
shouted, “yes, Tring—who used to be my student. Because I looked so
much into the crystal my mind grew weak and he knew and I knew. It was
he who said that if we but possessed the secret of turning brass into
gold then we should have power without stint, and it was he who first
directed me to read in the glass what formula I might find therein for
such magic. What did I find there? . . . Only the reflections of my own
crazed brain. And at last between us we have done nothing but cause want
and misery and suffering all over Krakow. It is because of our madness
that half the city is now but a heap of ashes, that men and women and
children are homeless and in poverty.”
With these words his voice shrank to a wail, and he stood, a pitiful
figure, his shoulders drooping, and his face turned toward the ground.
“Cease, man! We are thy friends,” shouted the scholar.
“Nay. Such as I have no friends. But”—his shoulders suddenly
straightened—“with such jewels as this that cause strife between man
and man, and war between nation and nation—here—now—I make an end!”
Then raising himself to such a height that for a moment he appeared to
be a giant, he swung about and hurled the crystal into the air with all
his force.
The sun struck it there as it seemed for a moment to hang between earth
and sky like a glittering bubble or a shining planet. Then it fell,
fell, fell—until it dropped with a splash into the black, hurried
waters of the Vistula River, so that the circles for a moment beat back
the waves of the rushing torrent—then all was as before.
Deep silence fell upon the onlookers. There was in the man’s act
something solemn, something unearthly, something supernatural—his
emotion was so great and the crystal had been such a beauteous thing;
and when Jan Kanty said, “Let us pray,” the whole company fell upon
their knees. When he had finished a simple prayer they went forward and
took up the alchemist where he had fallen, for he had dropped down as if
he had been suddenly overcome by a sickness. They carried him back to
the tower of the Church of Our Lady Mary where his niece and Pan
Andrew’s wife watched over him.
* * * * *
Meanwhile the King called the scholar into conference, and after much
parley, and much weighing of pros and cons, it was decided that no
attempt should be made to rescue the crystal from the bed of the river.
There had been in its history too much of suffering and misfortune to
make it a thing at all desirable to possess, in spite of the purity of
its beauty.
And should its hiding place become known—should a foreign power again
seek to obtain it, what chance had such a power with the King’s army and
the fortified city of the Wawel forever ready in its defense? Surely
never had treasure a safer resting place.
And so to this day it has never been disturbed, though in later
centuries many men have sought for it, and it rests somewhere in the
Vistula River near the Wawel, where the alchemist, Kreutz, threw it in
the year 1462.
Pan Andrew received from the state enough recompense to rebuild his
house in the Ukraine and he repaired there that same year, taking with
him Elzbietka and the alchemist who was broken in health for a long time
as the result of his experiences. When he came to his senses a few days
after he had thrown the crystal into the river, he had returned to his
right mind fully though he had no remembrance of the dark scenes in
which he had played a part. The student Tring must have left for his
home in Germany directly after the fire, for he was never seen again in
Krakow. In later years he gained some fame in his own native village by
the practice of magic, in which it was said that he often called upon
the devil himself for assistance.
Joseph continued his studies in the university until he reached his
twenty-second year, and then he returned to the Ukraine to manage his
father’s estates. He was shortly afterward married to Elzbietka, the
friend of his boyhood days. . . . And now since we have come to the
happy end of all things in this tale, may we close with the thought that
every Pole carries in his mind—with the words that are foremost in the
Polish National Hymn:
May God Save Poland
EPILOGUE
THE BROKEN NOTE
It is the year 1926. The Vistula River now no longer turns at the Wawel
Hill and plunges straight through the Krakow plain dividing the city of
Kazimierz from the city of Krakow, but instead swings far to the left
and surrounds the whole plain, now the new city. The castles and towers
and cathedral of the Wawel still rise proudly on the hill as in former
days; St. Andrew’s which has defied fire, siege, and war for eight
centuries raises its head—two towers—above Grodzka Street; the old
Cloth Hall, beautified during the Renaissance, still stands in the
middle of the central Rynek. And although the glory of former days is
departed from the city and the kings no longer sit in the castle on the
hill, there has come with the years the growth of a new glory, the glory
of culture as seen in the university of fourteenth century origin, in
the schools of fine arts and music and handicraft and trade. From all
Poland come students to study and to live in this venerable city, which
is Gothic in every corner and every gable save where here and there a
bit of Romanesque wall or arch has survived the Tartar, or the Cossack,
or the Swede.
But the chief glory of the city is the Church of Our Lady Mary. It no
longer stands apart, a monument visible from afar as of old—other
palaces and buildings have shut it in, and one sees its towers only,
until one is close upon it. Then the sudden magnificence leaps upon the
visitor. A splendid silence lurking in its high roof descends suddenly
like the thousands of pigeons that thunder down for particles of bread.
Beneath one’s feet is the old city cemetery; there on the walls are the
tablets and shrines; there at the south doorway are the iron collars
that once clasped the throats of petty criminals as they stood
supplicating the prayers and pennies of the faithful. Inside, the church
is a veritable miracle of beauty. Above its exquisite wood carvings and
choir rises a vaulted roof of sky blue, studded with stars. Images of
stone look down from breaks in the Gothic fluting—tablets, banners,
altars, shrines all strike alike upon the sight in amazing beauty.
But listen: is the organ playing? Whence come those notes that float
down from above like God’s own music from heaven? They come from the
towers, for the hour is striking on the bell, and a trumpeter is playing
at one of the open tower windows. And that tune? It is the Heynal, the
same tune played by a young man so many centuries ago when the Tartars
burned the city—and listen, the trumpeter breaks off his song in the
middle of a note. . . . Four times he sounds the Heynal, once at each of
the four windows, west, south, east, north. And many a man or woman or
child on hearing that song thinks of the days when the young life was
given to country and God and duty. . . . Poland has been through many
fires since that time—she has had centuries of war, a century of
extinction. But in all that time the Heynal has sounded with each
passing hour and men have sworn each year to keep the custom unto the
very end of time. Hark, it is sounding now.
May it bring in an epoch of peace to all men!
NOTES
The author wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to the following
persons for their services in aiding his research: Professor Roman
Dyboski of the English Department of the University of Krakow; Director
Frederic Papee of the university library, and his assistants, Dr. Sophia
Ameisen and Dr. Wojciech Gelecki; Director Adam Chmiel of the Old
Archives Building; Miss Helene d’Abancour de Franqueville of the library
of the Krakow Academy; Miss Helena Walkowicz, a student in the
university, and Madame Sophia Smoluchowska of Krakow.
The Aqua Phosphorata mentioned on page 108 was a luminous liquid
compounded by the alchemist. Phosphorus as we know it to-day was first
made by Brandt in 1699. In 1602, however, Scipio Begatello exploited the
qualities of the famous Bologna Stone and its luminous qualities,
discovered by Vincenzo Cascariolo about 1595, and there are other
suggestions that similar substances were used by earlier alchemists and
magicians.
In the illustrations Miss Pruszynska has followed faithfully fifteenth
and sixteenth century models. Two old volumes, the _Codex of Baltazar
Behem_ in the University Library, and the _Pontifical Ciolka_ in the
Czartoryski Museum, Krakow, have furnished the models for the dress,
architecture, customs, and colors. For greater detail in dress, the book
of the celebrated Polish artist, Matejko, _Costumes in Poland of Other
Days_, was the authority. The decorations of the illustrations are in
the style of the Wit Stwosz altarpieces of the Church of Our Lady Mary.
In the Iuramenta or Book of Oaths in the Old Archives of the City of
Krakow may be found the modified oath of the Krakow trumpeters as it
existed in the year 1671. It had been enlarged and translated from Latin
into Polish. In 1740 the Book of Oaths was rebound in the form in which
it now exists. Appended is a translation of the oath.
IURAMENTUM TUBICINIS
“I swear to Almighty God that I will be obedient to their honors
the gentlemen of the Krakovian council, and faithful to the
whole city in the service which I render with the trumpet, also
that I will be diligent scrupulously in keeping watch, to the
extent of my duties, to wit: the sounding of the alarm of fire
whenever and wherever it appears, in the city, or behind the
city, likewise to sound upon the trumpet the hours of the night
and day (appointed), and without the permission of his honor the
Burgomaster I will sound the trumpet at no man’s request. I will
be clean in all things and watch the fires in the tower. And all
this observe which belongs to my duties, so help me God.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where
multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer
errors occur.
[The end of _The Trumpeter of Krakow_ by Eric Philbrook Kelly]