Margery, Volume 1.
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Georg Ebers >> Margery, Volume 1.
All this and much more I would say to the good Sister; nay, and I made so
bold as to ask her whether Christ's behest that we should love our enemy
were not too high for attainment by the spirit of man. This made her
grave and thoughtful; yet she found no lack of comforting words, and said
that the Lord had only showed the way and the end. That men had turned
sadly from both; but that many a stream wandered through divers windings
from the path to its goal, the sea, before it reached it; and that
mankind was wondrous like the stream, for, albeit they even now rend each
other in bloody fights, the day will come when foe shall offer to foe the
palm of peace, and when there shall be but one fold on earth and one
Shepherd.
But my anxious questioning, albeit I was but a child, had without doubt
troubled her pure and truthful spirit. It was in Passion week, of the
fifth year of my school-life--and ever through those years she had become
more bent and her voice had sunk lower, so that many a time we found it
hard to hear her--that it fell that she could no longer quit her cell;
and she sent me a bidding to go to her bedside, and with me only two of
us all: to wit my Ann, and Elsa Ebner, a right good child and a diligent
bee in her work.
And it befell that as Sister Margaret on her deathbed bid us farewell for
ever, with many a God speed and much good council for the rest likewise,
her heart waxed soft and she went on to speak of the love each Christian
soul oweth to his neighbor and eke to his enemy. She fixed her eye in
especial on me, and confessed with her pale lips that she herself had
ofttimes found it hard to love evil-minded adversaries and those whose
ways had been contrary to hers, as the law of the Saviour bid her.
To those young ones among us who had made their minds up to take the veil
she had, ere this, more especially shown what was needful; for their way
lay plain before them, to walk as followers of Christ how bitter soever
it might be to their human nature; but we were bound to live in the
world, and she could but counsel us to flee from hate as the soul's worst
foe and the most cunning of all the devils. But an if it should befall
that our heart could not be subdued after a brave struggle to love such
or such an one, then ought we to strive at least to respect all that was
good and praiseworthy in him, inasmuch as we should ever find something
worthy of honor even in the most froward and least pleasing to ourselves.
And these words I have ever kept in mind, and many times have they given
me pause, when the hot blood of the Schoppers has bid me stoop and pick
up a stone to fling at my neighbor.
No longer than three days after she had thus bidden us to her side,
Sister Margaret entered into her rest; she had been our strait but gentle
teacher, and her learning was as far above that of most women of her time
as the heavens are high; and as her mortal body lay, no longer bent, but
at full length in the coffin, the saintly lady, who before she took the
vows had been a Countess of Lupfen, belonged, meseemed, to a race taller
than ours by a head. A calm, queenlike dignity was on her noble thin
face; and, this corpse being the first, as it fell, that I had ever
looked on, it so worked on my mind that death, of which I had heretofore
been in terror, took the image in my young soul of a great Master to whom
we must indeed bow, but who is not our foe.
I never could earn such praise as Ann, who was by good right at our head;
notwithstanding I ever stood high. And the vouchers I carried home were
enough to content Cousin Maud, for her great wish that her foster-
children should out-do others was amply fulfilled by Herdegen, the
eldest. He was indeed filled with sleeping learning, as it were, and I
often conceived that he needed only fitting instruction and a fair start
to wake it up. For even he did not attain his learning without pains,
and they who deem that it flew into his mouth agape are sorely mistaken.
Many a time have I sat by his side while he pored over his books, and I
could see how he set to work in right earnest when once he had cast away
sports and pastime. Thus with three mighty blows he would smite the nail
home, which a weaker hand could not do with twenty. For whole weeks he
might be idle and about divers matters which had no concern with
schooling; and then, of a sudden, set to work; and it would so wholly
possess his soul that he would not have seen a stone drop close at his
feet.
My second brother, Kunz, was not at all on this wise. Not that he was
soft-witted; far from it. His head was as clear as ever another's for
all matters of daily life; but he found it hard to learn scholarship, and
what Herdegen could master in one hour, it took him a whole livelong day
to get. Notwithstanding he was not one of the dunces, for he strove hard
with all diligence, and rather would he have lost a night's sleep than
have left what he deemed a duty only half done. Thus there were sore
half-hours for him in school-time; but he was not therefor to be pitied,
for he had a right merry soul and was easily content, and loved many
things. Good temper and a high spirit looked out of his great blue eyes;
aye, and when he had played some prank which was like to bring him into
trouble he had a look in his eyes--a look that might have melted a stone
to pity, much more good Cousin Maud.
But this did not altogether profit him, for after that Herdegen had
discovered one day how easily Kunz got off chastisement he would pray him
to take upon himself many a misdeed which the elder had done; and Kunz,
who was soft-hearted, was fain rather to suffer the penalty than to see
it laid on his well-beloved brother. Add to this that Kunz was a well-
favored, slender youth; but as compared with Herdegen's splendid looks
and stalwart frame he looked no more than common. For this cause he had
no ill-wishers while our eldest's uncommon beauty in all respects, and
his hasty temper, ever ready to boil over for good or evil, brought upon
him much ill-will and misliking.
When Cousin Maud beheld how little good Kunz got out of his learning, in
spite of his zeal, she was minded to get him a private governor to teach
him; and this she did by the advice of a learned doctor of Church-law,
Albrecht Fleischmann, the vicar and provost of Saint Sebald's and member
of the Imperial council, because we Schoppers were of the parish of Saint
Sebald's, to which church Albrecht and Friedrich Schopper, God rest their
souls, had attached a rich prebendary endowment.
His Reverence the prebendary Fleischmann, having attended the Council at
Costnitz, whither he was sent by the town elders with divers errands to
the Emperor Sigismund, who was engaged in a disputation with John Huss
the Bohemian schismatic, brought to my cousin's knowledge a governor
whose name was Peter Pihringer, a native of Nuremberg. He it was who
brought the Greek tongue, which was not yet taught in the Latin schools
of our city, not in our house alone, but likewise into others; he was not
indeed at all like the high-souled men and heroes of whom his Plutarch
wrote; nay, he was a right pitiable little man, who had learnt nothing of
life, though all the more out of books. He had journeyed long in Italy,
from one great humanistic doctor to another, and while he had sat at
their feet, feeding his soul with learning, his money had melted away in
his hands--all that he had inherited from his father, a worthy tavern-
keeper and master baker. Much of his substance he had lent to false
friends never to see it more, and it would scarce be believed how many
times knavish rogues had beguiled this learned man of his goods. At
length he came home to Nuremberg, a needy traveller, entering the city by
the same gate as that by which Huss had that same day departed, having
tarried in Nuremberg on his way to Costnitz and won over divers of our
learned scholars to his doctrine. Now, after Magister Peter had written
a very learned homily against the said Hans Huss, full of much Greek--
of which, indeed, it was reported that it had brought a smile to the
dauntless Bohemian's lips in the midst of his sorrow--he found a patron
in Doctor Fleischmann, who was well pleased with this tractate, and he
thenceforth made a living by teaching divers matters. But he sped but
ill, dwelling alone, inasmuch as he would forget to eat and drink and
mislay or lose his hardly won wage. Once the town watch had to see him
home because, instead of a book, he was carrying a ham which a gossip had
given him; and another day he was seen speeding down the streets with his
nightcap on, to the great mirth of the lads and lasses.
Notwithstanding he showed himself no whit unworthy of the high praise
wherewith his Reverence the Prebendary had commended him, inasmuch as he
was not only a right learned, but likewise a faithful and longsuffering
teacher. But his wisdom profited Herdegen and Ann and me rather than
Kunz, though it was for his sake that he had come to us; and as, touching
this strange man's person, my cousin told me later that when she saw him
for the first time she took such a horror of his wretched looks that she
was ready to bid him depart and desire the Reverend doctor to send us
another governor. But out of pity she would nevertheless give him a
trial, and considering that I should ere long be fully grown, and that a
young maid's heart is a strange thing, she deemed that a younger teacher
might lead it into peril.
At the time when Master Pihringer came to dwell with us, Herdegen was
already high enough to pass into the upper school, for he was first in
his 'ordo'; but our guardian, the old knight Hans Im Hoff, of whom I
shall have much to tell, held that he was yet too young for the risks of
a free scholar's life in a high school away from home, and he kept him
two years more in Nuremberg at the school of the Brethren of the Holy
Ghost, albeit the teaching there was not of the best. At any rate Master
Pihringer avowed that in all matters of learning we were out of all
measure behind the Italians; and how rough and barbarous was the Latin
spoken by the reverend Fathers and taught by them in the schools, I
myself had later the means of judging.
Their way of imparting that tongue was in truth a strange thing; for to
fix the quantity of the syllables in the learners' mind, they were made
to sing verses in chorus, while one of them, on whose head Father
Hieronymus would set a paper cap to mark his office, beat the measure
with a wooden sword; but what pranks of mischief the unruly rout would be
playing all the time Kunz could describe better than I can.
The great and famous works of the Roman chroniclers and poets, which our
Master had come to know well in Italy--having besides fine copies of
them--were never heard of in the Fathers' school, by reason, that those
writers had all been mere blind heathen; but, verily, the common school
catechisms which were given to the lads for their instruction, contained
such foolish and ill-conceived matters, that any sage heathen would have
been ashamed of them. The highest exercise consisted of disputations on
all manner of subtle and captious questions, and the Latin verses which
the scholars hammered out under the rule of Father Jodocus were so vile
as to rouse Magister Peter to great and righteous wrath. Each morning,
before the day's tasks began, the fine old hymn Salve Regina was chanted,
and this was much better done in the Brothers' school than in ever
another, for those Monks gave especial heed to the practice of good
music. My Herdegen profited much thereby, and he was the foremost of all
the singing scholars. He likewise gladly and of his own free will took
part in the exercises of the Alumni, of whom twelve, called the Pueri,
had to sing at holy mass, and at burials and festivals, as well as in the
streets before the houses of the great city families and other worthy
citizens. The money they thus earned served to help maintain the poorer
scholars, and to be sure, my brother was ready to forego his share; nay,
and a great part of his own pocket-money went to those twelve, for among
them were comrades he truly loved.
There was something lordly in my elder brother, and his fellows were ever
subject to his will. Even at the shooting matches in sport he was ever
chosen captain, and the singing pueri soon would do his every behest.
Cousin Maud would give them free commons on many a Sunday and holy-day,
and when they had well filled their hungry young crops at our table for
the coming week of lean fare, they went out with us into the garden, and
it presently rang with mirthful songs, Herdegen beating the measure,
while we young maids joined in with a will.
For the most part we three: Ann, Elsa Ebner, and I--were the only maids
with the lads, but Ursula Tetzel was sometimes with us, for she was ever
fain to be where Herdegen was. And he had been diligent enough in
waiting upon her ere ever I went to school. There was a giving and
taking of flowers and nosegays, for he had chosen her for his Lady, and
she called him her knight; and if I saw him with a red knot on his cap I
knew right well it was to wear her color; and I liked all this child's-
play myself right well, inasmuch as I likewise had my chosen color:
green, as pertaining to my cousin in the forest.
But when I went to the convent-school all this was at an end, and I had
no choice but to forego my childish love matters, not only for my tasks'
sake, but forasmuch as I discerned that Gotz had a graver love matter on
hand, and that such an one as moved his parents to great sorrow.
The wench to whom he plighted his love was the daughter of a common
craftsman, Pernhart the coppersmith, and when this came to my ears it
angered me greatly; nay, and cost me bitter tears, as I told it to Ann.
But ere long we were playing with our dollies again right happily.
I took this matter to heart nevertheless, more than many another of my
years might have done; and when we went again to the Forest Lodge and I
missed Gotz from his place, and once, as it fell, heard my aunt lamenting
to Cousin Maud bitterly indeed of the sorrows brought upon her by her
only son--for he was fully bent on taking the working wench to wife in
holy wedlock--in my heart I took my aunt's part. And I deemed it a
shameful and grievous thing that so fine a young gentleman could abase
himself to bring heaviness on the best of parents for the sake of a
lowborn maid.
After this, one Sunday, it fell by chance that I went to mass with Ann to
the church of St. Laurence, instead of St. Sebald's to which we belonged.
Having said my prayer, looking about me I beheld Gotz, and saw how, as he
leaned against a pillar, he held his gaze fixed on one certain spot. My
eyes followed his, and at once I saw whither they were drawn, for I saw a
young maid of the citizen class in goodly, nay--in rich array, and she
was herself of such rare and wonderful beauty that I myself could not
take my eyes off her. And I remembered that I had met the wench erewhile
on the feast-day of St. John, and that uncle Christian Pfinzing, my
worshipful godfather, had pointed her out to Cousin Maud, and had said
that she was the fairest maid in Nuremberg whom they called, and rightly,
Fair Gertrude.
Now the longer I gazed at her the fairer I deemed her, and when Ann
discovered to me, what I had at once divined, that this sweet maid was
the daughter of Pernhart the coppersmith, my child's heart was glad, for
if my cousin was without dispute the finest figure of a man in the whole
assembly Fair Gertrude was the sweetest maid, I thought, in the whole
wide world.
If it had been possible that she could be of yet greater beauty it would
but have added to my joy. And henceforth I would go as often as I might
to St. Laurence's, and past the coppersmith's house to behold Fair
Gertrude; and my heart beat high with gladness when she one day saw me
pass and graciously bowed to my silent greeting, and looked in my face
with friendly inquiry.
After this when Gotz came to our house I welcomed him gladly as
heretofore; and one day, when I made bold to whisper in his ear that I
had seen his fair Gertrude, and for certain no saint in heaven could have
a sweeter face than hers, he thanked me with a bright look and it was
from the bottom of his soul that he said: "If you could but know her
faithful heart of gold!"
For all this Gotz was dearer to me than of old, and it uplifted me in my
own conceit that he should put such trust in a foolish young thing as I
was. But in later days it made me sad to see his frank and noble face
grow ever more sorrowful, nay, and full of gloom; and I knew full well
what pained him, for a child can often see much more than its elders
deem. Matters had come to a sharp quarrel betwixt the son and the
parents, and I knew my cousin well, and his iron will which was a by-word
with us. And my aunt in the Forest was of the same temper; albeit her
body was sickly, she was one of those women who will not bear to be
withstood, and my heart hung heavy with fear when I conceived of the
outcome of this matter.
Hence it was a boon indeed to me that I had my Ann for a friend, and
could pour out to her all that filled my young soul with fears. How our
cheeks would burn when many a time we spoke of the love which was the
bond between Gotz and his fair Gertrude. To us, indeed, it was as yet
a mystery, but that it was sweet and full of joy we deemed a certainty.
We would have been fain to cry out to the Emperor and the world to take
arms against the ruthless parents who were minded to tread so holy a
blossom in the dust; but since this was not in our power we had dreams of
essaying to touch the heart of my forest aunt, for she had but that one
son and no daughter to make her glad, and I had ever been her favorite.
Thus passed many weeks, and one morning, when I came forth from school,
I found Gotz with Cousin Maud who had been speaking with him, and her
eyes were wet with tears; and I heard him cry out:
"It is in my mother's power to drive me to misery and ruin; but no power
in heaven or on earth can drive me to break the oath and forswear the
faith I have sworn!"
And his cheeks were red, and I had never seen him look so great and tall.
Then, when he saw me, he held out both hands to me in his frank, loving
way, and I took them with all my heart. At this he looked into my eyes
which were full of tears, and he drew me hastily to him and kissed me on
my brow for the first time in all his life, with strange passion; and
without another word he ran out of the house-door into the street. My
cousin gazed after him, shaking her head sadly and wiping her eyes; but
when I asked her what was wrong with my cousin she would give me no
tidings of the matter.
The next day we should have gone out to the forest, but we remained at
home; Aunt Jacoba would see no one. Her son had turned his back on his
parents' dwelling, and had gone out as a stranger among strangers. And
this was the first sore grief sent by Heaven on my young heart.
CHAPTER IV.
Many of the fairest memories of my childhood are linked with the house
where Ann's parents dwelt. It was indeed but a simple home and not to be
named with ours--the Schopperhof--for greatness or for riches; but it was
a snug nest, and in divers ways so unlike ever another that it was full
of pleasures for a child.
Master Spiesz, Ann's father, had been bidden from Venice, where he had
been in the service of the Mendel's merchant house, to become head clerk
in Nuremberg, first in the Chamber of Taxes, and then in the Chancery,
a respectable post of much trust. His father was, as Ursula Tetzel had
said in the school, a luteplayer; but he had long been held the head and
chief of teachers of the noble art of music, and was so greatly respected
by the clergy and laity that he was made master and leader of the church
choir, and even in the houses of the city nobles his teaching of the lute
and of singing was deemed the best. He was a right well-disposed and
cheerful old man, of a rare good heart and temper, and of wondrous good
devices. When the worshipful town council bid his son Veit Spiesz come
back to Nuremberg, the old man must need fit up a proper house for him,
since he himself was content with a small chamber, and the scribe was by
this time married to the fair Giovanna, the daughter of one of the
Sensali or brokers of the German Fondaco, and must have a home and hearth
of his own.
[Sensali--Agents who conducted all matters of business between the
German and Venetian merchants. Not even the smallest affair was
settled without their intervention, on account of the duties
demanded by the Republic. The Fondaco was the name of the great
exchange established by the Republic itself for the German trade.]
The musician, who had as a student dwelt in Venice, hit on the fancy that
he would give his daughter-in-law a home in Nuremberg like her father's
house, which stood on one of the canals in Venice; so he found a house
with windows looking to the river, and which he therefore deemed fit to
ease her homesickness. And verily the Venetian lady was pleased with the
placing of her house, and yet more with the old man's loving care for
her; although the house was over tall, and so narrow that there were but
two windows on each floor. Thus there was no manner of going to and fro
in the Spiesz's house, but only up and down. Notwithstanding, the
Venetian lady loved it, and I have heard her say that there was no spot
so sweet in all Nuremberg as the window seat on the second story of her
house. There stood her spinning-wheel and sewing-box; and a bright
Venice mirror, which, in jest, she would call "Dame Inquisitive," showed
her all that passed on the river and the Fleisch-brucke, for her house
was not far from those which stood facing the Franciscan Friars. There
she ruled in peace and good order, in love and all sweetness, and her
children throve even as the flowers did under her hand: roses, auriculas,
pinks and pansies; and whosoever went past the house in a boat could hear
mirth within and the voice of song. For the Spiesz children had a fine
ear for music, both from their grandsire and their mother, and sweet,
clear, bell-like voices. My Ann was the queen of them all, and her
nightingale's throat drew even Herdegen to her with great power.
Only one of the scribe's children, little Mario, was shut out from the
world of sound, for he was a deaf-mute born; and when Ann tarried under
our roof, rarely indeed and for but a short while, her stay was brief for
his sake; for she tended him with such care and love as though she had
been his own mother. Albeit she thereby was put to much pains, these
were as nothing to the heartfelt joys which the love and good speed of
this child brought her; for notwithstanding he was thus born to sorrow,
by his sister's faithful care he grew a happy and thankful creature.
Ofttimes my Cousin Maud was witness to her teaching of her little
brother, and all Ann did for the child seemed to her so pious and so
wonderful, that it broke down the last bar that stood in the way of our
close fellowship. And Ann's well-favored mother likewise won my cousin's
good graces, albeit she was swift to mark that the Italian lady could
fall in but ill with German ways, and in especial with those of
Nuremberg, and was ever ready to let Ann bear the burthen of the
household.
All our closest friends, and foremost of these my worshipful godfather
Uncle Christian Pfinzing, ere long truly loved my little Ann; and of all
our fellows I knew of only one who was ill-disposed towards her, and that
was Ursula Tetzel, who marked, with ill-cloaked wrath, that my brother
Herdegen cared less and less for her, and did Ann many a little courtesy
wherewith he had formerly favored her. She could not dissemble her
anger, and when my eldest brother waited on Ann on her name day with the
'pueri' to give her a 'serenata' on the water, whereas, a year agone, he
had done Ursula the like honor, she fell upon my friend in our garden
with such fierce and cruel words that my cousin had to come betwixt them,
and then to temper my great wrath by saying that Ursula was a motherless
child, whose hasty ways had never been bridled by a loving hand.
As I mind me now of those days I do so with heartfelt thankfulness and
joy. To be sure it but ill-pleased our grand-uncle and guardian, the
knight Im Hoff, that Cousin Maud should suffer me, the daughter of a
noble house, to mix with the low born race of a simple scrivener; but
in sooth Ann was more like by far to get harm in our house, among my
brethren and their fellows, than I in the peaceful home by the river,
where none but seemly speech was ever heard and sweet singing, nor ever
seen but labor and good order and content.
Right glad was I to tarry there; but yet how good it was when Ann got
leave to come to us for the whole of Sunday from noon till eventide; when
we would first sit and chatter and play alone together, and talk over all
we had done in school; thereafter we had my brothers with us, and would
go out to take the air under the care of my cousin or of Magister Peter,
or abide at home to sing or have merry pastime.