Margery, Volume 1.
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Georg Ebers >> Margery, Volume 1.
She quitted the room; but she had left the lamp, and as soon as I was
alone I looked once more at the picture, which showed me my mother in
right goodly array. She had a rose on her breast, her golden fillet
looked like the crown of the Queen of Heaven, and in her robe of rich,
stiff brocade she was like some great Saint. But what seemed to me more
heavenly than all the rest was her rose and white young face, and the
sweet mouth which I had touched with my lips. Oh if I had but once had
the happiness of kissing that mouth in life! A sudden feeling glowed
in my heart, and an inward voice told me that a thousand kisses
from Cousin Maud would never be worth one single kiss from that lovely
young mother, and that I had indeed lost almost as much as my pitying
friends had said. And I could not help sorrowing, weeping for a long
time; I felt as though I had lost just what was best and dearest, and
for the first time I saw that my good cousin was right ugly as other
folks said, and my silly little head conceived that a real mother must be
fair to look upon, and that however kind any one else might be she could
never be so gracious and lovable.
And so I fell asleep; and in my dreams the picture came towards me out of
the frame and took me in her arms as Madonna takes her Holy Child, and
looked at me with a gaze as if all the love on earth had met in those
eyes. I threw my arms round her neck and waited for her to fondle and
play with me like Mistress Stromer with her little Clare; but she gently
and sadly shook her head with the golden crownlet, and went up to Cousin
Maud and set me in her lap.
"I have never forgot that dream, and often in my prayers have I lifted up
my heart to my sainted mother, and cried to her as to the blessed Virgin
and Saint Margaret, my name-saint; and how often she has heard me and
rescued me in need and jeopardy! As to my cousin, she was ever dearer to
me from that night; for had not my own mother given me to her, and when
folks looked at me pitifully and bewailed my lot, I could laugh in my
heart and think: 'If only you knew! Your children have only one mother,
but we have two; and our own real mother is prettier than any one's,
while the other, for all that she is so ugly, is the best.'"
It was the compassion of folks that first led me to such thoughts, and as
I grew older I began to deem that their pity had done little good to my
young soul. Friends are ever at hand to comfort every job; but few are
they who come to share his heaviness, all the more so because all men
take pleasure in comparing their own fair lot with the evil lot of
others. Compassion--and I am the last to deny it--is a noble and right
healing grace; but those who are so ready to extend it should be cautious
how they do so, especially in the case of a child, for a child is like a
sapling which needs light, and those who darken the sun that shines on it
sin against it, and hinder its growth. Instead of bewailing it, make it
glad; that is the comfort that befits it.
I felt I had discovered a great and important secret and I was eager to
make our sainted mother known to my brothers; but they had found her
already without any aid from their little sister. I told first one and
then the other all that stirred within me, and when I spoke to Herdegen,
the elder, I saw at once that it was nothing new to him. Kunz, the
younger, I found in the swing; he flew so high that I thought he would
fling himself out, and I cried to him to stop a minute; but, as he
clutched the rope tighter and pulled himself together to stand firm on
the board, he cried: "Leave me now, Margery; I want to go up, up; up to
Heaven--up to where mother is!"
That was enough for me; and from that hour we often spoke together of our
sainted mother, and Cousin Maud took care that we should likewise keep
our father in mind. She had his portrait--as she had had my mother's--
brought from the great dining-room, where it had hung, into the large
children's room where she slept with me. And this picture, too, left
its mark on my after-life; for when I had the measles, and Master Paul
Rieter, the town physician and our doctor, came to see me, he stayed a
long time, as though he could not bear to depart, standing in front of
the portrait; and when he turned to me again, his face was quite red with
sorrowful feeling--for he had been a favorite friend of my father, at
Padua--and he exclaimed: "What a fortunate child art thou, little
Margery!"
I must have looked at him puzzled enough, for no one had ever esteemed me
fortunate, unless it were Cousin Maud or the Waldstromers in the forest;
and Master Paul must have observed my amazement, for he went on. "Yea,
a happy child art thou; for so are all babes, maids or boys, who come
into the world after their father's death." As I gazed into his face,
no less astonished than before, he laid the gold knob of his cane against
his nose and said: "Remember, little simpleton, the good God would not be
what he is, would not be a man of honor--God forgive the words--if he did
not take a babe whom He had robbed of its father before it had seen the
light or had one proof of his love under His own special care. Mark what
I say, child. Is it a small thing to be the ward of a guardian who is
not only Almighty but true above all truth?" And those words have
followed me through all my life till this very hour.
CHAPTER II.
Thus passed our childhood, as I have already said, in very great
happiness; and by the time that my brothers had left the leading strings
far behind them, and were studying their 'Donatus', Cousin Maud was
teaching me to read and write, and that with much mirth and the most
frolicsome ways. For instance, she would stamp four copies of each
letter out of sweet honey-cakes, and when I knew them well she gave me
these tiny little A. B. C. cakes, and one I ate myself, and gave the
others to my brothers, or Susan, or my cousin. Often I put them in my
satchel to carry them into the woods with me, and give them to my Cousin
Gotz's favorite hound or his cross-beak; for he himself did not care for
sweets. I shall have many things to tell of him and the forest; even
when I was very small it was my greatest joy to be told that we were
going to the woods, for there dwelt the dearest and most faithful of all
our kinsmen: my uncle Waldstromer and his family. The stately hunting-
lodge in which he dwelt as head forester of the Lorenzerwald in the
service of the Emperor and of our town, had greater joys for me than any
other, since not only were there the woods with all their delights and
wonders, but also, besides many hounds, a number of strange beasts, and
other pastimes such as a town child knows little of.
But what I most loved was the only son of my uncle and aunt Waldstromer,
for whose dog I kept my cake letters; for though Cousin Gotz was older
than I by eleven years, he nevertheless did not scorn me, but whenever I
asked him to show me this or that, or teach me some light woodland craft,
he would leave his elders to please me.
When I was six years old I went to the forest one day in a scarlet velvet
hood, and after that he ever called me his little "Red riding-hood," and
I liked to be called so; and of all the boys and lads I ever met among my
brothers' friends or others I deemed none could compare with Gotz; my
guileless heart was so wholly his that I always mentioned his name in my
little prayers.
Till I was nine we had gone out into the forest three or four times in
each year to pass some weeks; but after this I was sent to school, and
as Cousin Maud took it much to heart, because she knew that my father had
set great store by good learning, we paid such visits more rarely; and
indeed, the strict mistress who ruled my teaching would never have
allowed me to break through my learning for pastime's sake.
Sister Margaret, commonly called the Carthusian nun, was the name of the
singular woman who was chosen to be my teacher. She was at once the most
pious and learned soul living; she was Prioress of a Carthusian nunnery
and had written ten large choirbooks, besides others. Though the rule of
her order forbade discourse, she was permitted to teach.
Oh, how I trembled when Cousin Maud first took me to the convent.
As a rule my tongue was never still, unless it were when Herdegen sang to
me, or thought aloud, telling me his dreams of what he would do when he
had risen to be chancellor, or captain-in chief of the Imperial army, and
had found a count's or a prince's daughter to carry home to his grand
castle. Besides, the wild wood was a second home to me, and now I was
shut up in a convent where the silence about me crushed me like a too
tight bodice. The walls of the vast antechamber, where I was left to
wait, were covered with various texts in Latin, and several times
repeated were these words under a skull.
"Bitter as it is to live a Carthusian, it is right sweet to die one."
There was a crucifix in a shrine, and so much bright red blood flowed
from the Crown of Thorns and the Wounds that the Sacred Body was half
covered with it, and I was sore afraid at the sight--oh I can find no
words for it! And all the while one nun after another glided through the
chamber in silence, and with bowed head, her arms folded, and never so
much as lifting an eye to look at me.
It was in May; the day was fine and pleasant, but I began to shiver,
and I felt as if the Spring had bloomed and gone, and I had suddenly
forgotten how to laugh and be glad. Presently a cat stole in, leapt on
to the bench where I sat, and arched her back to rub up against me; but I
drew away, albeit I commonly laved to play with animals; for it glared at
me strangely with its green eyes, and I had a sudden fear that it would
turn into a werewolf and do me a hurt.
At length the door opened, and a woman in nun's weeds came in with my
cousin; she was the taller by a head. I had never seen so tall a woman,
but the nun was very thin, too, and her shoulders scarce broader than my
own. Ere long, indeed, she stooped a good deal, and as time went on I
saw her ever with her back bent and her head bowed. They said she had
some hurt of the back-bone, and that she had taken this bent shape from
writing, which she always did at night.
At first I dared not look up in her face, for my cousin had told me that
with her I must be very diligent, that idleness never escaped her keen
eyes; and Gotz Waldstromer knew the meaning of the Latin motto with which
she began all her writings: "Beware lest Satan find thee idle!" These
words flashed through my mind at this moment; I felt her eye fixed upon
me, and I started as she laid her cold, thin fingers on my brow and
firmly, but not ungently, made me lift my drooping head. I raised my
eyes, and how glad I was when in her pale, thin face I saw nothing but
true, sweet good will.
She asked me in a low, clear voice, though hardly above a whisper, how
old I was, what was my name, and what I had learnt already. She spoke in
brief sentences, not a word too little or too many; and she ever set me
my tasks in the same manner; for though, by a dispensation, she might
speak, she ever bore in mind that at the Last Day we shall be called to
account for every word we utter.
At last she spoke of my sainted parents, but she only said: "Thy father
and mother behold thee ever; therefore be diligent in school that they
may rejoice in thee.--To-morrow and every morning at seven." Then she
kissed me gently on my head, bowed to my cousin without a word, and
turned her back upon us. But afterwards, as I walked on in the open air
glad to be moving, and saw the blue sky and the green meadows once more,
and heard the birds sing and the children at play, I felt as it were a
load lifted from my breast; but I likewise felt the tall, silent nun's
kiss, and as if she had given me something which did me honor.
Next morning I went to school for the first time; and whereas it is
commonly the part of a child's godparents only to send it parcels of
sweetmeats when it goes to school, I had many from various kinsfolks and
other of our friends, because they pitied me as a hapless orphan.
I thought more of my riches, and how to dispense them, than of school and
tasks; and as my cousin would only put one parcel into my little satchel
I stuffed another--quite a little one, sent me by rich mistress Grosz,
with a better kind of sweeties--into the wallet which hung from my
girdle.
On the way I looked about at the folks to see if they observed how I had
got on, and my little heart beat fast as I met my cousin Gotz in front of
Master Pernhart's brass-smithy. He had come from the forest to live in
the town, that he might learn book-keeping under the tax-gatherers. We
greeted each other merrily, and he pulled my plait of hair and went on
his way, while I felt as if this meeting had brought me good luck indeed.
In school of course I had to forget such follies at once; for among
Sister Margaret's sixteen scholars I was far below most of them, not,
indeed in stature, for I was well-grown for my years, but in age and
learning and this I was to discover before the first hour was past.
Fifteen of us were of the great city families, and this day, being the
first day of the school-term, we were all neatly clad in fine woollen
stuffs of Florence or of Flanders make, and colored knitted hose. We all
had fine lace ruffs round the cuffs of our tight sleeves and the square
cut fronts of our bodices; each little maid wore a silken ribbon to tie
her plaits, and almost all had gold rings in her ears and a gold pin at
her breast or in her girdle. Only one was in a simple garb, unlike the
others, and she, notwithstanding her weed was clean and fitting, was
arrayed in poor, grey home spun. As I looked on her I could not but mind
me of Cinderella; and when I looked in her face, and then at her feet to
see whether they were as neat and as little as in the tale, I saw that
she had small ankles and sweet little shoes; and as for her face, I
deemed I had never seen one so lovely and at the same time so strange to
me. Yea, she seemed to have come from another world than this that I and
the others lived in; for we were light or brown haired, with blue or grey
eyes, and healthy red and white faces; while Cinderella had a low
forehead and with big dark eyes strange, long, fine silky lashes; and
heavy plaits of black hair hung down her back.
Ursula Tetzel was accounted by the lads the comeliest maiden of us all;
and I knew full well that the flower she wore in her bodice had been
given to her by my brother Herdegen early that morning, because he had
chosen her for his "Lady," and said she was the fairest; but as I looked
at her beside this stranger I deemed that she was of poorer stuff.
Moreover Cinderella was a stranger to me, and all the others I knew well,
but I had to take patience for a whole hour ere I could ask who this fair
Cinderella was, for Sister Margaret kept her eye on us, and so long as I
was taught by her, no one at any time made so bold as to speak during
lessons or venture on any pastime.
At last, in a few minutes for rest, I asked Ursula Tetzel, who had come
to the convent school for a year past. She put out her red nether-lip
with a look of scorn and said the new scholar had been thrust among us
but did not belong to the like of us. Sister Margaret, though of a noble
house herself, had forgot what was due to us and our families, and had
taken in this grey bat out of pity. Her father was a simple clerk in the
Chancery office and was accountant to the convent for some small wage.
His name was Veit Spiesz, and she had heard her father say that the
scribe was the son of a simple lute-player and could hardly earn enough
to live. He had formerly served in a merchant's house at Venice. There
he had wed an Italian woman, and all his children, which were many, had,
like her, hair and eyes as black as the devil. For the sake of a "God
repay thee!" this maid, named Ann, had been brought to mix with us
daughters of noble houses. "But we will harry her out," said Ursula,
"you will see!"
This shocked me sorely, and I said that would be cruel and I would have
no part in such a matter; but Ursula laughed and said I was yet but a
green thing, and turned away to the window-shelf where all the new-comers
had laid out their sweetmeats at the behest of the eldest or first of the
class; for, by old custom, all the sweetmeats brought by the novices on
the first day were in common.
All the party crowded round the heap of sweetmeats, which waxed greater
and greater, and I was standing among the others when I saw that the
scribe's daughter Ann, Cinderella, was standing lonely and hanging her
head by the tiled stove at the end of the room. I forthwith hastened to
her, pressed the little packet which Mistress Grosz had given me into her
hand--for I had it still hidden in my poke--and, whispered to her: "I had
two of them, little Ann; make haste and pour them on the heap."
She gave me a questioning look with her great eyes, and when she saw that
I meant it truly she nodded, and there was something in her tearful look
which I never can forget; and I mind, too, that when I passed the little
packet into her hand it seemed that I, and not she, had received the
favor.
She gave the sweetmeats she had taken from me to the eldest, and
spoke not a word, and did not seem to mark that they all mocked at the
smallness of the packet. But soon enough their scorn was turned to glee
and praises; for out of Cinderella's parcel such fine sweetmeats fell on
to the heap as never another one had brought with her, and among them was
a little phial of attar of roses from the Levant.
At first Ann had cast an anxious look at me, then she seemed as though
she cared not; but when the oil of roses came to light she took it firmly
in her hand to give to me. But Ursula cried out: "Nay. Whatsoever the
new-comers bring is for all to share in common!" Notwithstanding, Ann
laid her hand on mine, which already held the phial, and said boldly: "I
give this to Margery, and I renounce all the rest."
And there was not one to say her nay, or hinder her; and when she refused
to eat with them, each one strove to press upon her so much as fell to
her share.
When Sister Margaret came back into the room she looked to find us in
good order and holding our peace; and while we awaited her Ann whispered
to me, as though to put herself right in my eyes: "I had a packet of
sweetmeats; but there are four little ones at home."
Cousin Maud was waiting at the convent gate to take me home. As I was
setting forth at good speed, hand in hand with my new friend, she looked
at the little maid's plain garb from top to toe, and not kindly. And she
made me leave hold, but yet as though it were by chance, for she came
between us to put my hood straight. Then she busied herself with my
neckkerchief and whispered in my ear: "Who is that?"
So I replied: "Little Ann;" and when she went on to ask who her father
might be, I told her she was a scrivener's daughter, and was about to
speak of her with hearty good will, when my cousin stopped me by saying
to Ann: "God save you child; Margery and I must hurry." And she strove
to get me on and away; but I struggled to be free from her, and cried out
with the wilful pride which at that time I was wont to show when I
thought folks would hinder that which seemed good and right in my eyes:
"Little Ann shall come with us."
But the little maid had her pride likewise, and said firmly: "Be dutiful,
Margery; I can go alone." At this Cousin Maud looked at her more
closely, and thereupon her eyes had the soft light of good will which I
loved so well, and she herself began to question Ann about her kinsfolk.
The little maid answered readily but modestly, and when my Cousin
understood that her father was a certain writer in the Chancery of whom
she had heard a good report, she was softer and more gentle, so that when
I took hold again of Ann's little hand she let it pass, and presently, at
parting, kissed her on the brow and bid her carry a greeting to her
worthy father.
Now, when I was alone with Cousin Maud and gave her to understand that
I loved the scribe's little daughter and wished for no dearer friend,
she answered gravely; "Little maids can hold no conversation with any
but those whose mothers meet in each other's houses. Take patience till
I can speak to Sister Margaret." So when my Cousin went out in the
afternoon I tarried in the most anxious expectation; but she came home
with famous good tidings, and thenceforward Ann was a friend to whom I
clung almost as closely as to my brothers. And which of us was the chief
gainer it would be hard to say, for whereas I found in her a trusted
companion to whom I might impart every thing which was scarce worthy of
my brothers' or my Cousin's ears, and foremost of all things my childish
good-will for my Cousin Gotz and love of the Forest, to her the place in
my heart and in our house were as a haven of peace when she craved rest
after the heavy duties which, for all she was so young, she had already
taken upon herself.
CHAPTER III.
True it is that the class I learnt in at the convent was under the
strictest rule, and that my teacher was a Carthusian nun; and yet I take
pleasure in calling to mind the years when my spirit enjoyed the benefit
of schooling with friendly companions and by the side of my best friend.
Nay, even in the midst of the silent dwelling of the speechless Sisters,
right merry laughter might be heard during the hours of rest, and in
spite of the thick walls of the class-room it reached the nuns' ears.
Albeit at first I was stricken with awe, and shy in their presence,
I soon became familiar with their strange manner of life, and there was
many an one whom I learnt truly to love: with some, too, we could talk
and jest right merrily, for they, to be sure, had good ears, and we,
were not slow in learning the language of their eyes and fingers.
As concerning the rule of silence no one, to my knowledge, ever broke it
in the presence of us little ones, save only Sister Renata, and she was
dismissed from the convent; yet, as I waxed older, I could see that the
nuns were as fain to hear any tidings of the outer life that might find a
way into the cloister as though there was nothing they held more dear
than the world which they had withdrawn from by their own free choice.
For my part, I have ever been, and remain to the end, one of those least
fitted for the Carthusian habit, notwithstanding that Sister Margaret
would paint the beatitudes and the purifying power of her Order in fair
and tempting colors. In the hours given up to sacred teaching, when she
would shed out upon us the overflowing wealth and abundant grace of her
loving spirit--insomuch that she won not less than four souls of our
small number to the sisterhood--she was wont and glad to speak of this
matter, and would say that there was a heavenly spirit living and moving
in every human breast. That it told us, with the clear and holy voice
of angels, what was divine and true, but that the noise of the world and
our own vain imaginings sounded louder and would not suffer us to hear.
But that they who took upon them the Carthusian rule and hearkened to
it speechless, in a silent home, lending no ear to distant outer voices,
but only to those within, would ere long learn to mark the heavenly voice
with the inward ear and know its warning. That voice would declare to
them the glory and the will of the Most High God, and reveal the things
that are hidden in such wise as that even here below he should take part
in the joys of paradise.
But, for all that I never was a Carthusian nun, and that my tongue was
ever apt to run too freely, I conceive that I have found the Heavenly
Spirit in the depths of my own soul and heard its voice; but in truth
this has befallen me most clearly, and with most joy, when my heart has
been most filled with that worldly love which the Carthusian Sisters shut
out with a hundred doors. And again, when I have been moved by that love
towards my neighbor which is called Charity, and wearied myself out for
him, sparing nothing that was my own, I have felt those divine emotions
plainly enough in my breast.
The Sister bid us to question her at all times without fear, and I was
ever the foremost of us all to plague her with communings. Of a
certainty she could not at all times satisfy my soul, which thirsted for
knowledge, though she never failed to calm it; for I stood firm in the
faith, and all she could tell me of God's revelation to man I accepted
gladly, without doubt or cavil. She had taught us that faith and
knowledge are things apart, and I felt that there could be no more peace
for my soul if I suffered knowledge to meddle with faith.
Led by her, I saw the Saviour as love incarnate; and that the love which
He brought into the world was still and ever a living thing working after
His will, I strove to confess with my thinking mind. But I beheld even
the Archbishops and Bishops go forth to battle, and shed the blood of
their fellow men with vengeful rage; I saw Pope excommunicate Pope--for
the great Schism only came to an end while I was yet at school; peaceful
cities in their sore need bound themselves by treaties, under our eyes,
for defence against Christian knights and lords. The robber bands of the
great nobles plundered merchants on the Emperor's highway, though they
were of the same creed, while the citizens strove to seize the
strongholds of the knights. We heard of many more letters of defiance
than of peacemaking and friendship. Even the burgesses of our good
Christian town--could not the love taught by the Redeemer prevail even
among them? And as with the great so with the simple; for was it love
alone that reigned among us maidens in a Christian school? Nay, verily;
for never shall I forget how that Ursula Tetzel, and in fellowship with
her a good half of the others, pursued my sweet, sage Ann, the most
diligent and best of us all, to drive her out of our midst; but in vain,
thanks to Sister Margaret's upright justice. Nay, the shrewish plotters
were fain at last to see the scrivener's daughter uplifted to be our
head, and this compelled them to bend their pride before her.