Part 8

I went instantly. He was talking very rapidly and vehemently, and in an incoherent way it was difficult to understand. My mother sat quite still, holding his hand. His eyes were not bright as in fever, but dim and fixed. Yet he was in a raging fever. His hand, when I touched it, burned like fire, and his face was flushed crimson. I stood there quite silently beside my mother until the physician came. At first Fritz's eyes followed me; then they seemed watching the door for some one else; but in a few minutes the dull vacancy came over them again, and he seemed conscious of nothing.

At last the physician came. He paused a moment at the door, and held a bag of myrrh before him; then advancing to the bed, he drew aside the clothes and looked at Fritz's arm.

"Too plain!" he exclaimed, starting back as he perceived a black swelling there. "It is the plague!"

My mother followed him to the door.

"Excuse me, madam," he said; "life is precious, and I might carry the infection into the city."

"Can nothing be done?" she said.

"Not much!" he said bluntly; and then, after a moment's hesitation, touched by the distress in her face, he returned to the bed-side. "I have touched him," he murmured, as if apologizing to himself for incurring the risk; "the mischief is done, doubtless, already." And taking out his lancet he bled my brother's arm.

Then, after binding up the arm, he turned to me and said,--

"Get cypress and juniper wood, and burn them in a brazier in this room, with rosin and myrrh. Keep your brother as warm as possible--do not let in a breath of air!" And, he added, as I followed him to the door, "on no account suffer him to sleep for a moment,[4] and let no one come near him but you and your mother."

[Footnote 4: An approved method of treatment of the plague in those times.]

When I returned to the bed-side, after obeying these directions, Fritz's mind was wandering; and although we could understand little that he said, he was evidently in great distress. He seemed to have comprehended the physician's words, for he frequently repeated, "The plague! the plague! I have brought a curse upon my house!" and then he would wander, strangely calling on Martin Luther and Eva to intercede and obtain pardon for him, as if he were invoking saints in heaven; and occasionally he would repeat fragments of Latin hymns.

It was dreadful to have to keep him awake; to have to rouse him, whenever he showed the least symptom of slumber, to thoughts which so perplexed and troubled his poor brain. But on the second night the mother fainted away, and I had to carry her to her room. Her dear thin frame was no heavy weight to bear. I laid her on the bed in our room, which was the nearest. Eva appeared at the door as I stood beside our mother. Her face was as pale as death. Before I could prevent it, she came up to me, and taking my hands said,--

"Cousin Else, only promise me one thing;--if he is to die, let me see him once more."

"I dare not promise anything, Eva," I said; "consider the infection!"

"What will the infection matter to me if he dies?" she said; "I am not afraid to die."

"Think of the father and the children, Eva," I said; "If our mother and I should be seized next, what would they do?"

"Chriemhild will soon be old enough to take care of them," she said very calmly; "promise me, promise me, Else, or I will see him at once."

And I promised her, and she threw her arms around me, and kissed me. Then I went back to Fritz, leaving Eva chafing my mother's hands. It was of no avail, I thought, to try to keep her from contagion, now that she had held my hands in hers.

When I came again to Fritz's bed-side he was asleep! Bitterly I reproached myself; but what could I have done? He was asleep--sleeping quietly, with soft, even breathing. I had not courage to awake him; but I knelt down and implored the blessed Virgin and all the saints to have mercy on me and spare him. And they must have heard me; for, in spite of my failure in keeping the physician's orders, Fritz began to recover from that very sleep.

Our grandmother says it was a miracle; "unless," she added, "the doctor was wrong!"

He awoke from that sleep refreshed and calm, but weak as an infant.

It was delightful to meet his eyes when first he awoke, with the look of quiet recognition in them, instead of that wild, fixed stare, or that restless wandering; to look once more into his heart through his eyes. He looked at me a long time with a quiet content, without speaking, and then he said, holding out his hand to me,--

"Else, you have been watching long here. You look tired; go and rest."

"It rests me best to look at you," I said, "and see you better."

He seemed too weak to persist, and after taking some food and cooling drinks, he fell asleep again, and so did I; for the next thing I was conscious of was our mother gently placing a pillow underneath my head, which had sunk on the bed where I had been kneeling, watching Fritz. I was ashamed of being such a bad nurse; but our mother insisted on my going to our room to seek rest and refreshment. And for the next few days we took it in turns to sit beside him, until he began to regain strength. Then we thought he might like to see Eva; but when she came to the door, he eagerly motioned her away, and said,--

"Do not let her venture near me. Think if I were to bring this judgment of God on her!"

Eva turned away, and was out of sight in an instant; but the troubled, perplexed expression came back into my brother's eyes, and the feverish flush into his face, and it was long before he seemed calm again.

I followed Eva. She was sitting with clasped hands in our room.

"Oh, Else," she said, "how altered he is! Are you sure he will live, even now?"

I tried to comfort her with the hope which was naturally so much stronger in me, because I had seen him in the depths from which he was now slowly rising again to life. But something in that glimpse of him seemed to weigh on her very life; and as Fritz recovered, Eva seemed to grow paler and weaker, until the same feverish symptoms came over her which he had learned so to dread, and then the terrible tokens, the plague-spots, which could not be doubted, appeared on the fair, soft arms, and Eva was lying with those dim, fixed, pestilence-veiled eyes, and the wandering brain.

For a day we were able to conceal it from Fritz, but no longer.

On the second evening after Eva was stricken, I found him standing by the window of his room, looking into the street. I shall never forget the expression of horror in his eyes as he turned from the window to me.

"Else," he said, "how long have those fires been burning in the streets?"

"For a week," I said. "They are fires of cypress-wood and juniper, and myrrh and pine gums. The physicians say they purify the air."

"I know too well what they are," he said. "And, Else," he said, "why is Master Buerer's house opposite closed?"

"He has lost two children," I said.

"And why are those other windows closed all down the street?" he rejoined.

"The people have left, brother," I said; "but the doctors hope the worst is over now."

"O just God!" he exclaimed, sinking on a chair and covering his face; "I was flying from thee, and I have brought the curse on my people!"

Then, after a minute's pause, before I could think of any words to comfort him, he looked up, and suddenly demanded,--

"Who are dead in _this_ house, Else?"

"None, none," I said.

"Who are stricken?" he asked.

"All the children and the father are well," I said, "and the mother."

"Then Eva is stricken!" he exclaimed--"the innocent for the guilty! She will die and be a saint in heaven, and I, who have murdered her, shall live, and shall see her no more, for ever and for ever."

I could not comfort him. The strength of his agony utterly stunned me. I could only burst into tears, so that he had to try to comfort me. But he did not speak; he only took my hands in his kindly, as of old, without saying another word. At length I said--

"It is not you who brought the plague, dear Fritz; it is God who sent it!"

"I know it is God!" he replied, with such an intense bitterness in his tone that I did not attempt another sentence.

That night Eva wandered much as I watched beside her; but her delirium was quite different from that of Fritz. Her spirit seemed floating away on a quiet stream into some happy land we could not see. She spoke of a palace, of a home, of fields of fragrant lilies, of white-robed saints walking among them with harps and songs, and of One who welcomed her. Occasionally, too, she murmured snatches of the same Latin hymns that Fritz had repeated in his delirium, but in a tone so different, so child-like and happy! If ever she appeared troubled, it was when she seemed to miss some one, and be searching here and there for them; but then she often ended with, "Yes, I know they will come; I must wait till they come." And so at last she fell asleep, as if the thought had quieted her.

I could not hinder her sleeping, whatever the physician said; she looked so placid, and had such a happy smile on her lips. Only once, when she had lain thus an hour quite still, while her chest seemed scarcely to heave with her soft, tranquil breathing, I grew alarmed lest she should glide thus from us into the arms of the holy angels; and I whispered softly, "Eva, dear Eva!"

Her lips parted slightly, and she murmured--

"Not yet; wait till _they_ can come."

And then she turned her head again on the pillow, and slept on.

She awoke quite collected and calm, and then she said quietly--

"Where is the mother?"

"She is resting, darling Eva."

She gave a little contented smile, and then, in broken words at intervals, she said--

"Now, I should like to see Fritz. You promised I should see him again; and now if I die, I think he would like to see me once more."

I went to fetch my brother. He was pacing up and down his room, with the crucifix clasped to his breast. At first, to my surprise, he seemed very reluctant to come; but when I said how much she wished it, he followed me quite meekly into her room. Eva was resuming her old command over us all. She held out her hand, with a look of such peace and rest on her face.

"Cousin Fritz," she said at intervals, as she had strength, "you have taught me so many things; you have done so much for me! Now I wish you to learn my sentence, that if I go, it may make you happy, as it does me." Then very slowly and distinctly she repeated the words--"'_God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son._' Cousin Fritz," she added, "I do not know the end of the sentence. I have not been able to find it; but you must find it. I am sure it comes from a good book, it makes me love God so much to think of it. Promise me you will find it, if I should die."

He promised, and she was quite satisfied. Her strength seemed exhausted, and in a few moments, with my arms round her as I sat beside her, and with her hand in Fritz's, she fell into a deep, quiet sleep.

I felt from that time she would not die, and I whispered very softly to Fritz--

"She will not die; she will recover, and you will not have killed her; you will have saved her!"

But when I looked into his face, expecting to meet a thankful, happy response, I was appalled by the expression there.

He stood immovable, not venturing to withdraw his hand, but with a rigid, hopeless look in his worn, pale face, which contrasted terribly with the smile of deep repose on the sleeping face on which his eyes were fixed.

And so he remained until she awoke, when his whole countenance changed for an instant to return her smile.

Then he said softly, "God bless you, Eva!" and pressing her hand to his lips, he left the room.

When I saw him again that day, I said--

"Fritz, you have saved Eva's life! She rallied from the time she saw you."

"Yes," he replied, very gently, but with a strange impassiveness in his face; "I think that may be true. I have saved her."

But he did not go in her room again; and the next day, to our surprise and disappointment, he said suddenly that he must leave us.

He said few words of farewell to any of us, and would not see Eva to take leave of her. He said it might disturb her.

But when he kissed me before he went, his hands and his lips were as cold as death. Yet as I watched him go down the street, he did not once turn to wave a last good-bye, as he always used to do; but slowly and steadily he went on till he was out of sight.

I turned back into the house with a very heavy heart; but when I went to tell Eva Fritz was gone, and tried to account for his not coming to take leave of her, because I thought it would give her pain (and it does seem to me rather strange of Fritz), she looked up with her quiet, trustful, contented smile, and said,--

"I am not at all pained, Cousin Else. I know Fritz had good reasons for it--some good, kind reasons--because he always has; and we shall see him again as soon as he feels it right to come."

VI.

Friedrich's Story.

ST. SEBASTIAN, ERFURT, _January_ 20, 1510.

The irrevocable step is taken. I have entered the Augustinian cloister. I write in Martin Luther's cell. Truly I have forsaken father and mother, and all that was dearest to me, to take refuge at the foot of the cross. I have sacrificed everything on earth to my vocation, and yet the conflict is not over. I seem scarcely more certain of my vocation now than while I remained in the world. Doubts buzz around me like wasps, and sting me on every side. The devil, transforming himself into an angel of light, perplexes me with the very words of Scripture. The words of Martin Luther's father recur to me, as if spoken by a divine voice, "Honour thy father and thy mother!" echoes back to me from the chants of the choir, and seems written everywhere on the white walls of my cell.

And, besides the thunder of these words of God, tender voices seem to call me back by every plea of duty, not to abandon them to fight the battle of life alone. Else calls me from the old lumber-room, "Fritz' brother! who is to tell me now what to do?" My mother does not call me back; but I seem ever to see her tearful eyes, full of reproach and wonder which she tries to repress, lifted up to heaven for strength; and her worn, pale face, growing more wan every day. In one voice and one face only I seem never to hear or see reproach or recall; and yet, Heaven forgive me, those pure and saintly eyes which seem only to say, "Go on, Cousin Fritz, God will help thee, and I will pray!"--those sweet, trustful, heavenly eyes, draw me back to the world with more power than anything else.

Is it, then, too late? Have I lingered in the world so long that my heart can never more be torn from it? Is this the punishment of my guilty hesitation, that, though I have given my body to the cloister, God will not have my soul, which evermore must hover like a lost spirit about the scenes it was too reluctant to leave? Shall I evermore, when I lift my eyes to heaven, see all that is pure and saintly there embodied for me in a face which it is deadly sin for me to remember?

Yet I have saved her life! If I brought the curse on my people by my sin, was not my obedience accepted? From the hour when, in my room alone, after hearing that Eva was stricken, I prostrated myself before God, and not daring to take His insulted name on my lips, approached him through His martyred saint, and said, "Holy Sebastian, by the arrows which pierced thy heart, ward off the arrows of pestilence from my home, and I will become a monk, and change my own guilty name for thine,"--from that moment did not Eva begin to recover, and from that time were not all my kindred unscathed? "Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dextris tuis; ad te autem non approprinquabit." Were not the words literally fulfilled; and while many still fell around us, was one afterwards stricken in my home?

Holy Sebastian, infallible protector against pestilence, by thy firmness when accused, confirm my wavering will; by thy double death, save me from the second death; by the arrows which could not slay thee, thou hast saved us from the arrow that flieth by day; by the cruel blows which sent thy spirit from the circus to paradise, strengthen me against the blows of Satan; by thy body rescued from ignominious sepulture and laid in the catacombs among the martyrs, raise me from the filth of sin; by thy generous pleading for thy fellow sufferers amidst thine own agonies, help me to plead for those who suffer with me; and by all thy sorrows, and merits, and joys, plead--oh plead for me, who henceforth bear thy name!

ST. SCHOLASTICA, _February_ 10.

I have been a month in the monastery. Yesterday my first probation was over, and I was invested with the white garments of the novitiate.

The whole of the brotherhood were assembled in the church, when, kneeling before the prior, he asked me solemnly whether I thought my strength sufficient for the burden I purposed to take on myself.

In a low, grave voice, he reminded me what those burdens are--the rough plain clothing; the abstemious living; the broken rest and long vigils; the toils in the service of the order; the reproach and poverty; the humiliations of the mendicant; and, above all, the renunciation of self-will and individual glory, to be a member of the order, bound to do whatever the superiors command, and to go whithersoever they direct.

"With God for my help," I could venture to say, "of this will I make trial."

Then the prior replied,--

"We receive thee, therefore, on probation for one year; and may God, who has begun a good work in thee, carry it on unto perfection."

The whole brotherhood responded in a deep amen, and then all the voices joined in the hymn,--

"Magna Pater Augustine, preces nostras suscipe, Et per eas conditori nos placare satage. Atque rege gregem tuum, summum decus praesulum.

Amatorem paupertatis, te collaudant pauperes; Assertorem veritatis amant veri judices; Frangis nobis favos mellis de Scripturis disserens.

Quae obscura prius erant nobis plana faciens, Tu de verbis Salvatoris dulcem panem conficis, Et propinas potum vitae de psalmorum nectare.

Tu de vita clericorum sanctam scribis regulam, Quam qui amant et sequunter viam tenent regiam, Atque tuo sancto ductu redeunt ad patriam.

Regi regum salis, vita, decus et emperium; Trinitati laus et honor sit per omne saeculum, Qui concives nos ascribat supernorum civium."[5]

[Footnote 5:

"Great Father Augustine, receive our prayers, And through them effectually reconcile the Creator; And rule thy flock, the highest glory of rulers.

The poor praise thee, lover of poverty; True judges love thee, defender of truth; Breaking the honeycomb of the honey of Scripture, thou distributest it to us.

Making smooth to us what before was obscure; Thou, from the words of the Saviour, furnishest us with wholesome bread, And givest to drink draughts of life from the nectar of the psalms.

Thou writest the holy rule for the life of priests, Which, whosoever love and follow, keep the royal road, And by thy holy leading return to their fatherland.

Salvation to the King of kings, life, glory, and dominion; Honour and praise be to the Trinity throughout all ages, To Him who declareth us to be fellow-citizens with the citizens of heaven."]

As the sacred words were chanted, they mingled strangely in my mind with the ceremonies of the investiture. My hair was shorn with the clerical tonsure; my secular dress was laid aside; the garments of the novice were thrown on; and I was girded with the girdle of rope, whilst the prior murmured softly to me, that with the new robes I must put on the new man.

Then, as the last notes of the hymn died away, I knelt and bowed low to receive the prior's blessing, invoked in these words:--

"May God who hath converted this young man from the world, and given him a mansion in heaven, grant that his daily walk may be as becometh his calling; and that he may have cause to be thankful for what has this day been done."

Versicles were then chanted responsively by the monks, who, forming in procession, moved towards the choir, where we all prostrated ourselves in silent prayer.

After this they conducted me to the great hall of the cloister, where all the brotherhood bestowed on me the kiss of peace.

Once more I knelt before the prior, who reminded me that he who persevereth to the end shall be saved; and gave me over to the direction of the preceptor, whom the new Vicar-General Staupitz has ordered to be appointed to each novice.

Thus the first great ceremony of my monastic life is over, and it has left me with a feeling of blank and disappointment. It has made no change that I can feel in my heart. It has not removed the world further off from me. It has only raised another impassable barrier between me and all that was dearest to me;--impassable as an ocean without ships, infrangible as the strongest iron, I am determined my _will_ shall make it; but to my _heart_, alas! thin as gossamer, since every faintest, wistful tone of love, which echoes from the past, can penetrate it and pierce me with sorrow.

My preceptor is very strict in enforcing the rules order. Trespasses against the rules are divided into four classes,--small, great, greater, and greatest, to each of which is assigned a different degree of penance. Among the smaller are, failing to go to church as soon as the sign is given, forgetting to touch the ground instantly with the hand and to smite the breast if in reading in the choir or in singing the least error is committed; looking about during the service; omitting prostration at the Annunciation or at Christmas; neglecting the benediction in coming in or going out; failing to return books or garments to their proper places; dropping food; spilling drink; forgetting to say grace before eating. Among the great trespasses are: contending, breaking the prescribed silence at fasts, and looking at women, or speaking to them, except in brief replies.

The minute rules are countless. It is difficult at first to learn the various genuflexions, inclinations, and prostrations. The novices are never allowed to converse except in presence of the prior, are forbidden to take any notice of visitors, are enjoined to walk with downcast eyes, to read the Scriptures diligently, to bow low in receiving every gift, and say, "The Lord be praised in his gifts."

How Brother Martin, with his free, bold, daring nature, bore those minute restrictions, I know not. To me there is a kind of dull, deadening relief in them, they distract my thoughts, or prevent my thinking.

Yet it must be true, my obedience will aid my kindred more than all my toil could ever have done whilst disobediently remaining in the world. It is not a selfish seeking of my own salvation and ease which has brought me here, whatever some may think and say, as they did of Martin Luther. I think of that ship in the picture at Magdeburg he so often told me of. Am I not in it,--actually _in_ it _now_? and shall I not hereafter, when my strength is recovered from the fatigue of reaching it, hope to lean over and stretch out my arms to them, still struggling in the waves of this bitter world? and save them!