Chapter VII.

Two days after, when the body of Mina had been deposited at sunset in the cemetery at Baden, Sebald and Johann, the master and pupil, found themselves alone in the atelier. Strange! It was Johann, the younger, that seemed the most afflicted, most crushed. His eyes were swollen, his cheeks pale, his step tottering, and his face covered with tears. Old Sebald seemed much less changed; a few furrows the more on his brow, a few more white hairs on his head, were the only visible tokens of his grief. His step was as firm, his bearing as proud as before; but a strange, steady glare, glowing and piercing, showing little trace of weariness or tears, shone from his eyes, and it was this look that the master fixed upon his pupil as they entered the atelier that made Johann shudder before its clear and threatening light.

"Johann," said the master, "it is now my turn to ask thee a question. Sawest thou Otho of Arneck when thou wert at the castle of the Countess Gertrude?"

"Ay, master," replied the young man, with flushed face.

"Spokest thou with him?"

"Ay, truly."

"Didst say to him that I prayed his presence, or, at least, that he should explain himself? That I was in deepest sorrow, and Mina sick unto death?"

"Yea, truly, my master."

"And what response made he?"

"That he, too, was grieved; but that his word was pledged, and that until his marriage he might not leave the castle of the countess. The soft remembrances of youth, he added, mar not, among wise men, the projects of a riper age."

"'Tis well, Johann, and I thank thee," replied the sculptor. "I now know what I wished to know, and resolution is taken."

Then he rose from his arm-chair threw a gloomy glance around the wall of the studio.

"I return hither no more," murmured. "Here have I toiled thirty years with upright heart and pure hands. Nothing that I have here completed has been sullied or profaned. I feared and served God; I honored and I loved man. I then had a right to give purity to my virgins, the light of faith to my martyrs, the halo of love to my cherubims. But now all is lost--faith, renown, and child. Holy images! I cannot touch ye with bruised heart and violent hands; hating and cursing men, I may not mould the august form of the God of love. Therefore, no more will I appear in this retreat; its windows shall remain darkened, its door closed. I will carry with me only my grief, my memories, and this," he cried, seizing a sculptor's chisel with a short, polished, and keen blade, upon which he gazed with his strange look, as he gripped it with feverish strength in his hand.

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"Speak not so. O my master! clasp not that steel so tightly," cried Johann. "That will bring thee little of consolation or hope. Look for solace for thy sorrows to this," he said, holding an ivory crucifix before his master's eyes. "It was pressed to Mina's dying lips; she hath bequeathed it to us. Recallest thou not, my master, her smile as she gazed upon it? 'Twas because beneath the shadow of the cross even death seems sweet. There is the only refuge, and there will I find shelter. The world hath had but little of joy for me, and I but little of love for the world. The prior of the Augustines hath promised me a cell, and I will be happy, there to pass my life, praying or working beneath the poor robe of a monk, and preserving the memory and crucifix of Mina."

"It is well, my son," replied Koerner. "To each one his own succor and light, his own strength and safety. If, thanks to the priest's purer cross, thou findest calm and resignation, may I not seek the encouragement and strength of my sculptor's chisel? Who may say, that, without these walls, I am not destined to achieve some work that will immortalize my name and console my heart? Then, why not leave to a father's grief the hope of glory, of triumph, and--this little sculptor's tool?" demanded the old man, with flushed face and sparkling eyes.

"I wish thee triumph and glory, my master. But yet, if thou canst do so, remember, when thou art active, diligent, and famous, that thy old pupil Johann, who would not be an artist and became a monk, will never cease to bless thee and to think of thee in his prayers."

So saying, the youth, weeping, kissed old Sebald's hand and left the dwelling, carrying with him the crucifix, his last and only treasure. When he had departed, Sebald Koerner, too, left the studio, after casting a last look on the bas-reliefs, the balcony, the mouldings, and the statues. He double-locked the door and took away the key, and, issuing from his house, he walked for a long time through the fields. Arriving at length at the side of a deep pool near the foot of the hills, he bent over the tranquil waters and dropped the key therein.

The water plashed and the waves hastened in increasing rings from the spot, and then became even more clear and peaceful than before--stilling themselves ere the key had touched the bottom. Sebald then again stood erect, with his icy glance and strange smile, yet grasping the chisel in his hand, and then concealing it in his bosom as if it were a dagger.