silent, but began again in a few seconds: ‘Yes, Lizzy is a good woman
after all; she said, after she had looked at the coffee grounds, that
there was nothing the matter with Dolly, and that the salamander look
about the eyes came from cracknel-baking or the dancing-room; but, at
the same time, she advised me to remain single, and told me that a
certain good gentleman was in great danger. These salamanders, she
said, are the worst sort of things that the devil employs to lure a
poor human soul to destruction, because they have certain passions--ah,
one must only stand firm and keep God in one’s heart--then I myself saw
in the coffee grounds Major O’Malley quite like and natural.’
“I bid the fellow hold his tongue, but you may conceive the feelings
that were awakened in me at this strange discourse of Paul’s, whom I
suddenly found initiated into my dark secret, and who so unexpectedly
displayed a knowledge of cabalistic matters, for which he was probably
indebted to the coffee-prophetess. I passed the most uneasy day I ever
had in my life. Paul was not to be got out of the room all that
evening, but was constantly returning and finding something to do.
When it was near midnight, and he was at last obliged to go, he said
softly, as if praying to himself: ‘Bear God in thy heart--think of the
salvation of thy soul--and thou wilt resist the enticements of Satan.’
“I cannot describe the manner--I may almost say, the fearful manner--in
which my soul was moved at these simple words of my servant. All my
endeavours to keep myself awake were in vain. I fell into that state
of confused dreaming, which I could not look upon as natural, but as
the operation of some foreign principle. The magical beaming woke me
as usual. Aurora in the full lustre of supernatural beauty, stood
before me, and passionately stretched her arms towards me.
Nevertheless, Paul’s pious words shone in my soul as if written there
with letters of fire. ‘Depart, thou seductive birth of hell!’ I cried,
when the terrible O’Malley, now of a gigantic stature, rose before me,
and piercing me with eyes, from which an infernal fire was flashing,
howled out: ‘Resist not--poor atom of humanity. Thou hast become
ours!’ My courage could have withstood the frightful aspect of the
most hideous spectre, but I lost my senses at the sight of O’Malley,
and fell to the ground.
“A loud report awoke me from this state of stupefaction. I felt myself
held by the arms of a man, and struggled with all the force of despair,
to free myself. ‘Gracious lieutenant, it is I,’ said a voice in my
ears. It was honest Paul who endeavoured to raise me from the ground.
I let him have his own way. He would not at first tell me plainly how
all had happened, but he at last assured me, with a mysterious smile,
that he knew better to what unholy acquaintance the major had lured me,
than I could suspect. The old pious Lizzy had revealed every thing to
him. He had not gone to sleep the night before, but had well loaded
his gun, and had watched at the door. When he had heard me cry aloud
and fall to the ground, he had, although his courage failed him a
little, burst open the door and entered. ‘There,’ he continued in his
mad way, ‘there stood Major O’Malley before me, as frightful to look
upon as in the cup of coffee. He grinned at me hideously, but I did
not allow myself to be stirred from my purpose and said: ‘If, gracious
major, you are the devil, pardon me for stepping boldly up to you as a
pious Christian and saying to you: ‘Avaunt, thou cursed Satan-Major, I
command thee in the name of the Lord. Begone, or I will fire!’ The
major would not give way, but kept on grinning at me, and began to
abuse me. I then cried, ‘Shall I fire?--shall I fire? and when he
persisted in keeping his place I fired in reality. But all had
vanished--both Major Satan and Mam’sell Belzebub had departed through
the wall!’
“The continued strain upon the mind during the period that had just
passed, together with the last frightful moments, threw me upon a
tedious sick-bed. When I recovered I left Potsdam, without seeing any
more of O’Malley, whose further fate has remained unknown to me. The
image of those portentous days grew fainter and fainter, and at last
vanished all together, so that I recovered perfect freedom of mind,
until here--”
“Well,” asked Albert, with the greatest curiosity and astonishment, “do
you mean to say you have lost your freedom again here? I cannot
conceive, why here--”
“Oh,” said Victor, interrupting his friend, while his tone became
somewhat solemn, “I can explain all in two words. In the sleepless
nights of the illness, I endured here, all the dreams of that noblest
and most terrible period of my life were revived. It was my glowing
passion itself, that assumed a form--Aurora--she again appeared to
me--glorified--purified in the fire of Heaven;--no devilish O’Malley
has further power over her--Aurora is--the baroness!”
“How! what!” cried Albert, shrinking with horror. Then he muttered to
himself, “The little plump housewife with the great bunch of keys--she
an elementary spirit!--she a salamander!”--and he felt a difficulty in
suppressing his laughter.
“In the figure,” continued Victor, “there is no longer any trace of
resemblance to be found, that is to say, in ordinary life; but the
mysterious fire that flashes from her eyes,--the pressure of her
hand.”--
“You have been very ill,” said Albert, gravely, “for the wound you
received in your head was serious enough to put your life in peril; but
now I find you are so far recovered that you will be able to go with
me. From the very bottom of my heart I implore you, my dear,--my
beloved friend, to leave this place, and accompany me to-morrow to
Aix-la-Chapelle.”
“I certainly do not intend to remain here any longer,” replied Victor.
“so I will go with you; however, let this matter first be cleared up.”
The next morning, when Albert woke, Victor told him that a strange,
ghostly sort of dream had revealed to him the mysterious word, which
O’Malley had taught him, when they prepared the Teraphim. He thought
that he would make use of it for the last time. Albert shook his head
doubtfully, and caused every thing to be got ready for a speedy
departure, while Paul Talkebarth evinced the most joyful activity by
all sorts of mad expressions. “Zackermanthö,” he muttered to himself
in Albert’s hearing, “It is a good thing that the devil Bear fetched
the Irish devil Foot long ago, otherwise there would have been
something wrong now.”
Victor, as he had wished, found the baroness alone in her room,
occupied with some domestic work. He told her that he was now at last
about to quit the house, where he had enjoyed such noble hospitality.
The baroness assured him that she had never entertained a friend more
dear to her. Victor then took her hand, and asked her if she were ever
at Potsdam, and knew a certain Irish Major. “Victor,” said the
baroness interrupting him hastily, “we shall part to-day, we shall
never see each other again; nay, we must not. A dark veil hangs over
my life. Let it suffice if I tell you that a fearful destiny condemns
me always to appear a different being from the one which I really am.
In the hateful position in which you have found me, and which causes me
spiritual torments, which my bodily health seems to belie, I am atoning
for a heavy fault--yet no more--farewell!” Upon this, Victor cried
with a loud voice: “Nehelmiahmiheal!” and the baroness, with a shriek
of horror, fell senseless to the ground. Victor under the influence of
a storm of strange feelings, and quite beside himself could scarcely
summon resolution enough to ring the bell. However, having done this,
he rushed from the chamber. “At once,--let us leave at once!” he cried
to his friend, and told him in a few words what had happened. Both
leaped upon the horses that had been brought for them, and rode off
without waiting for the return of the baron, who had gone out hunting.
Albert’s reflections on the ride from Liège to Aix-la-Chapelle have
already shown, with what profound earnestness, with what noble feeling,
he had appreciated the events of that fatal period. On the journey to
the Residence, whither the two friends now returned, he succeeded in
completely delivering Victor from the dreamy condition into which he
had sunk, and while Albert brought to his friend’s mind, depicted in
the most lively colours, all the monstrous occurrences which the days
of the last campaign had brought forth, the latter felt himself
animated by the same spirit as that which dwelt in Albert. And
although Albert never ventured upon long contradictions or doubts,
Victor himself now seemed to look upon his mystical adventure, as
nothing but a bad dream.
In the Residence it was natural that the ladies were favourably
disposed to the colonel, who was rich, of noble figure, young for the
high rank which he held, and who, moreover, was amiability itself.
Albert looked upon him as a lucky man, who might choose the fairest for
a wife, but Victor observed, very seriously: “Whether it was, that I
had been mystified, and, by wicked means, made to serve some unknown
end, or whether an evil power really tried to tempt me, this much is
certain, that though the past has not cost me my happiness, it has
deprived me of the paradise of love. Never can that time return, when
I felt the highest earthly felicity, when the ideal of my sweetest,
most transporting dreams, nay, love itself, was in my arms. Love and
pleasure have vanished, since a horrible mystery deprived me of her,
who to my inmost heart was really a higher being, such as I shall not
again find upon earth!”
The colonel remained unmarried.
J. O.
[1] _Eulenspiegelei_ signifies odd practical jokes, and is derived from
Eulenspiegel, the traditional perpetrator of such pleasantries.--J. O.
[2] Calderon’s “Medico de su honra.”
SAINT CECILIA; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC.
A CATHOLIC LEGEND, BY HEINRICH VON KLEIST.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, when iconoclasm was raging in
the Netherlands, three young brothers, who all studied at Wittenberg,
chanced to meet at Aix-la-Chapelle with a fourth, who had been
appointed preacher at Antwerp. They wished to take possession of an
inheritance, which had fallen to them by the death of an old uncle,
perfectly unknown to all of them, and had turned into an inn, because
no one was on the spot to whom they could apply. After the lapse of
some days, which they had passed in listening to the preacher’s
accounts of the remarkable occurrences that had taken place in the
Netherlands, it chanced that the festival of _Corpus Christi_ was just
about to be solemnised by the nuns of St. Cecilia’s convent, which then
stood before the city gates. The four brothers heated with fanaticism,
youth, and the example of the Netherlands, determined to give the town
of Aix-la-Chapelle a spectacle of image-breaking. The preacher, who
had been more than once at the head of such enterprises, assembled in
the evening preceding the festival a number of young tradesmen and
students, devoted to the new doctrine, who spent the night in eating
and drinking at the inn. Day had no sooner appeared over the
battlements than they provided themselves with axes and all sorts of
instruments of destruction, to begin their violent work. Exulting with
delight, they agreed upon a signal at which they would begin to knock
in the windows, which were painted over with biblical subjects, and,
secure of finding a great number of followers among the people, they
betook themselves to the cathedral, at the hour when the bells first
rang, with the determination not to leave one stone upon another. The
abbess, who, as early as daybreak, had been informed by a friend of the
peril in which the convent stood, sent several times, but always in
vain, to the imperial officer who held command in the town, requesting
him to appoint a guard for the protection of the convent. The officer,
who, clandestinely at least, was favorably imposed towards the new
doctrine, refused her request, under the pretext that she was merely
dreaming, and that not the slightest danger to her convent was to be
apprehended. In the meanwhile the hour appointed for the commencement
of the solemnities arrived, and the nuns prepared themselves for mass,
praying and trembling with the apprehension of approaching events. The
bailiff of the convent, an old man, aged seventy, with a troop of armed
servants, whom he had posted at the entrance of the church, was their
only protection. In nuns’ convents, it is well known, the sisters
themselves, who are well practised in every sort of instrument, are
their own musicians, and they play with a precision, a feeling, and an
intelligence, which we often miss in orchestras of men, probably
because there is something feminine in this mysterious art. Now it
happened, to increase the embarrassment, that the conductress of the
orchestra, Sister Antonia, had fallen sick of a nervous fever some days
before, and the consequence was, that the whole convent was in the
greatest tumult about the performance of a suitable piece of music, to
say nothing of the fact that the four profane brothers were already
visible, wrapped in mantles among the pillars of the church. The
abbess who, on the evening of the preceding day, had ordered the
performance of a very old Italian mass, by an unknown master, with
which the greatest effect had always been produced on account of its
peculiarly sacred and solemn character, and who was now more than ever
bent on her purpose, sent again to sister Antonia to know how she was.
The nun who took the message, returned with the intelligence that the
sister lay in a perfectly unconscious condition and that all notion of
her conducting the music must be entirely given up. In the meanwhile,
there had already been several very critical scenes in the convent into
which more than a hundred impious persons of all ranks and ages, armed
with hatchets and crowbars, had gradually found their way. Some of the
guards who stood at the portals had been shamefully annoyed, and the
nuns, who, engaged in their holy offices, had from time to time
appeared singly in the porticoes, were insulted by the most unseemly
expressions. At last the bailiff retreated to the sacristy, and there
upon his knees implored the abbess to stop the festival, and to seek
the protection of the commander in the city. But the abbess was
immoveable, insisting that the festival which had been instituted for
the honour of the Deity must take its course. She reminded the bailiff
that it was his duty to defend the mass, and all the solemnities of the
cathedral with life and limb, and as the bell had rang, ordered the
nuns, who surrounded her, shaking and trembling, to take an oratorium
of some sort or other, and make a beginning by performing it.
The nuns had just taken their places in the organ-loft, the different
parts of a composition that had already been frequently played, were
distributed, violins, oboes, and bass-viols were tried and tuned, when
suddenly Sister Antonia, quite fresh and well, though her face was a
little pale, appeared from the stairs. She had under her arm the parts
of the old Italian mass, on the performance of which the abbess had so
earnestly insisted. To the questions of the nuns, who asked with
astonishment whence she came, and how she had so suddenly recovered,
she replied, “No matter, friends, no matter!” distributed the parts she
had carried, and glowing with enthusiasm, sat down to the organ, to
undertake the direction of the excellent composition. This phenomenon
was a wonderful and truly heavenly consolation to the hearts of the
pious ladies; they at once sat down to their desks with their
instruments, and the very embarrassment in which they were placed, had
the effect of bearing their souls, as if upon wings, through all the
heaven of harmony. The oratorium was played with a musical
magnificence of the noblest and highest kind. Not a breath was heard
through the benches and aisles, and when the Salve Regina, and still
more, when the _Gloria in excelsis_ was performed, it was as if the
whole population in the church was dead. In spite of the four profane
brothers and their followers, not so much as the dust on the pavement
was disturbed, and the cloister remained standing till the end of the
“Thirty Years’ War,” when it was secularized by virtue of a clause in
the “Treaty of Westphalia.”
Six years had passed, and this occurrence had been long forgotten, when
the mother of the four youths came from the Hague, and mournfully
alleging that they had completely disappeared, instituted judicial
inquiries with the magistrates of Aix-la-Chapelle, to learn what road
they had taken from the city. The last account that had been received
of them in the Netherlands, where they purposely resided, was, as she
said, contained in a letter which the preacher had written to his
friend, a schoolmate at Antwerp, on the eve of a _Corpus Christi_ day.
The preacher, with great cheerfulness, or rather wantonness, had
closely filled four sides of this letter with the account of an
enterprise which he had projected against the Convent of St. Cecilia,
and which the mother would not enter upon more particularly. After
many vain endeavours to find the persons whom this afflicted lady was
seeking, it was at last remembered that seven years ago--at a time
which seemed to correspond to the account--four young people, whose
country and origin was unknown, had been put in the madhouse, which had
been recently erected in the city by the emperor. However, as these
persons were affected by religious extravagance, and their
deportment--as the court believed it had heard--was exceedingly
melancholy, this account seemed to accord so little with the
disposition of the sons--which was but too well known to the mother
that there was no need for her to attach much importance to it,
especially as it was pretty evident that the persons were Catholics.
However, as she was struck by many peculiarities which were described
to her, she went one day to the madhouse accompanied by one of the
messengers of the court, and asked the superintendent to allow her to
examine four unfortunate lunatics who were confined there. But who can
describe the poor lady’s horror, when, on entering the door, she
recognised her sons at the very first glance. They were dressed in
long black robes, and were sitting round a table, on which was a
crucifix. This they appeared to worship, leaning silently and with
folded hands upon the board. To the questions of the lady, who had
sunk into a chair quite exhausted, as to what they were doing, the
superintendents replied, that they were merely occupied in the
glorification of the Redeemer, of whose divinity, according to their
own account, they had a clearer knowledge than others. They added that
the young men had led this ghost-like life for six years, that they
slept little and tasted little, that no sound usually passed their
lips, and that it was only at the hour of midnight that they rose from
their seats, when, with voices loud enough to shatter the windows of
the house, they sang the _Gloria in excelsis_. The superintendents
concluded with the remark that the young men enjoyed perfect bodily
health, that a certain serenity, though of a very serious and solemn
kind, could not be denied them, and that when they heard themselves
called mad, they shrugged their shoulders with an air of compassion,
and had more than once declared that the good city of Aix-la-Chapelle
if it knew what they knew, would cease from all business and likewise
devote itself to singing the _Gloria_ round the crucifix.
The lady, who could not support the horrible sight of her unfortunate
sons, and who was soon led back tottering to her house, set off on the
following morning to Herr Veit Gotthelf, a celebrated cloth-merchant of
the city, to gain some intelligence as to the cause of this unfortunate
occurrence. She did so because the letter from the preacher mentioned
this man, and showed that he had taken a lively interest in the plan
for destroying the cloister of St. Cecilia on Corpus Christi day. Veit
Gotthelf, the cloth-merchant, who had become a husband and a father
since the time, and had moreover undertaken his father’s extensive
business, received his visitor very kindly, and when he heard the
affair that had brought her to him, bolted the door, and having
requested her to take a seat, proceeded as follows: