"Time--give me time, a respite," he groaned with pale lips, like a man condemned to death.
"Coward!" said Correntian contemptuously.
"No, do not call me so," cried the youth, striving to man himself.
"Send me out into the wilderness to fight for my life with the snow-storm and wild beasts, or out to the land of the Saracens to shed my blood for our Mother Church. You will not see me tremble, but do not ask me to turn the knife against my own eyes; it is our strongest instinct to cherish them, even stronger than to preserve our life. For though I have often heard of men who plunged a dagger into their heart, I never heard of one who thrust it into his eyes. Correntian, have mercy. Grant me sight, to see--not the earth--but the heavens only, that eternal home for which we all strive. The wanderer, who is nearing his final rest, feels his strength revived as he sees the metal star that shines on the tower of his home, or the smoke that rises from the paternal roof, and he struggles with renewed vigour to reach the longed-for goal. How much more must we when we are weary, be refreshed by a glance upwards at the real stars, at the distant clouds which look down upon us from our Father"s House. Who does not revive after such a prospect, and hasten joyfully forward? Grant me sight for that, and that only, it draws me on and upwards."
"Sensual fool," said Correntian smiling, "Do you think to reach Heaven by roads that are indicated by earthly light, do you believe that you will lose the way by not being able to see--as an earthly traveller might fail to find his home if he lost his eyes? It is from within and not from without that the light shines which must show you the path to Heaven, and the darker all is without, the brighter it is within; that path lies through earthly darkness. None have trodden it on whose eyes death has not first laid its black shroud; and do you not believe that the heavenly light which can irradiate the night of death can also illumine our deepest earthly darkness? Do you not believe that G.o.d the Lord is mighty to open in your soul a spiritual eye instead of the bodily eyes you sacrifice to Him, by which you may discern more and fairer things than any mortal yet has gazed on?"
"Oh Correntian--I do understand you--I admire you, but I cannot imitate you--not yet, not yet. If I could, then I should not be the sinner that I am, and you would not need to judge me. Give me time--for eternal mercy"s sake which G.o.d himself shows to sinners--for Christ"s blood sake which was shed in love for us--give me time."
"It is G.o.d that has spoken the sentence, not I--the execution of it is in your power, I have nothing farther to say," and Correntian rose.
"Now leave me, for it is unlawful for us to remain any longer in secret conference--this is not the confessional."
The youth stood yet a moment before him, hesitating.
"Correntian--you despise me for not doing what the scripture commands?"
"What do you care whether I esteem you or not?"
"Everything--from this hour everything!" cried the youth pa.s.sionately.
"You are made of other stuff than I am," said Correntian, with a strong gesture of repulsion. "My whole nature rejects you. If you were a brave warrior, or a wandering Minnesanger, I might esteem you, for you would be what you seem. But as a monk I despise you; for under the mask of self-denial you cloke worldliness and vanity, and the sacred robe you wear smells of the burning of wild and fevered desires. This is the true h.e.l.l-fire, and fearful is the ravage it may commit if it is not trampled out in time."
"I will trample it out--before G.o.d I will!" cried the tortured boy.
"Oh! cannot a drop of holy water mixed with the tears of true repentance extinguish the very fires of h.e.l.l? Repentance and grace--what can the devil do against them?"
"There is but one moisture that can surely and for ever extinguish the flames in which you are burning, and that is the limpid crystal in which all the world is mirrored; and it must be spilt by your own hand, poured over your own cheeks. It is indeed a precious dew, more precious than tears or blood, and because there is no man who would not keep it at the cost even of his life, it is so precious that only the highest crown of martyrdom can requite it! You may win this crown--you may rise out of the pool of sin of which the flames are already licking you, to be a saint before whom everyone shall kneel--I the first, I who have so long despised you; and earth and heaven shall rejoice over you--! And all this bliss you may obtain by one stroke of a knife, guided by a steady hand! Now go and choose."
The door closed on the victim. "Now go--and choose." The young man leaned against the outer door-post unable to go any farther. His heart quaked and a deadly chill ran through his veins like cold lead at the thought of such a choice. The highest crown of martyrdom! What! could he win this with one stroke, without any inward vocation or natural ripeness for it? And even if he were to succeed in s.n.a.t.c.hing this super-sensual extasy in one moment by one hasty stroke, could he bear it and support it worthily? And he must not do the deed for the sake of the crown--what we do for a reward has no value. It must be an act of deliverance, of deliverance from the utmost danger--but was it indeed so with him--was he so weak, so wanting in self-control that he needs must shut himself up in a dungeon of eternal night like a thief to keep himself from stealing forbidden fruit?
And oh! what a dungeon it will be! Will he not be crushed in the narrow confines of such impenetrable darkness--when his eye can see no s.p.a.ce before it--neither before it nor around it? Will not all the torments of being buried alive come upon him and stop his breath so that his heart will burst under the pressure of the stagnant blood?
Drop after drop of cold sweat ran down from his forehead. What had he done to deserve a punishment so unspeakably horrible? Was he indeed a thief--had he stolen the forbidden fruit? No, he had not done it, he had only longed for it, and as soon as he was conscious of the temptation he had prayed and scourged himself till it was conquered.
Was temptation in itself a sin? Nay else there would have been no Saints, for there was not one of them that had not had to pa.s.s through some struggles. Else Father Onofrius of saintly memory would not have needed to burn off during a night of visitation all the fingers of his hands, nor need the holy Founder of the Order, Saint Benedict, have accustomed himself to sleep on nettles! And must he do more than they all had done, to win the crown of the Saints? No, no; this could not be the will of G.o.d; it was Correntian"s stern severity that lay such fearful penance upon him; and outraged nature, revolting against it, tore him from the spot--in wild flight from the lashing of this superhuman asceticism--away--away--over all the barriers of his tortured conscience. His body, numbed as it were into unconsciousness, bereft of all power of resistance and urged by ungovernable terror, obeyed the impulse--he fled from the door of the terrible monk, as if he might open it again and by one commanding word stay the flight of these trembling vital impulses and compel them to a hideous, suicidal, annihilating struggle--Away--he must away. He fled down the steps with the swiftness of the whirlwind, pushed back the rusty bolt of the court-yard door and flew out into the fresh air, across the yard to the porter"s little gate-house. Without pausing to consider, he seized the key of the outer gate from the table, unseen by the sleeping warder--opened the gate and went out into the moonlit night, without stopping to take breath; on and away to the heath--to the harsh mother that bore him--as though he there might find counsel and consolation.
Never before had his feet borne him on such an expedition, and yet some unconscious urging guided him on the way that his eyes had so often longingly traced from the turret-window. Up he went, higher and higher, his feet winged by terror--higher and higher as he ascended, rose the guiding light of the broad, bright moon in the pure sky.
His face was streaming with the sweat of exhaustion--fully two hours had gone by when at last he reached the height, and before him lay the wide, level heath, a boundless lake of light. The white mists that floated and broke over it were bathed--soaked--in moonlight, like silvery billows--now rising, now falling--now floating formless, and anon swirling together into fearful wreathing pillars as if they would overwhelm the lonely wanderer in their silent ghostly tide.
Light--light, of which the eye might take its fill--across to the invisible distance and to where the great Ortler peak seemed wrapped in sleep and dreams. Light and peace--chaste and divine solitude! the hapless tortured child of man stood still in intoxicating contemplation, and spread out his arms to the splendour now first revealed to him, "Almighty Lord--Thou that art great!" he prayed aloud, "Thou that art merciful! Thou hast shed upon the world this inexhaustible ocean of light, and wouldst Thou rejoice if a miserable worm of earth should bury himself in the night of the grave?" And the words of the Psalmist sprang from his soul to his lips, "O Lord my G.o.d!
Thou art become exceeding glorious, Thou art clothed with majesty and honour, Thou deckest Thyself with light as it were with a garment, Thou spreadest out the heavens like a curtain, Thou makest the clouds Thy chariot and walkest upon the wings of the wind." And then he hastened on again, farther and farther. Psalteries and harps seemed to sound in his ears while his feet were cleaving the illusory intangible flood that closed over him without wetting him. Thus might Christ have walked dry foot over the waters--for the foundation he stood on was G.o.d, and all earthly things seemed to have vanished like the mist.
And yet the Son of G.o.d perished on the cross in the anguish of death like a torn up flower, and endured in patience and bore the woes of the whole earth--He who could command the elements, who had need only to spread his wings in order to soar away into the fields of eternal bliss! G.o.d, the All-merciful, the Omnipotent, suffered this to happen to his own Son!
Again he stood still, as if face to face with a problem that must be solved before he could go any farther; and he bowed his head, saying, "It must be so, for suffering is our portion; that which we call the hand of fate and which crushes us to the earth, is in fact the hand of G.o.d laid in love upon our shoulders--and what we call the anguish of death is but His fatherly kiss that drinks our soul! For so great is He and so small are we that we are destroyed if He do but touch us. And in like manner he gave his only Son, raising him up that we might see and acknowledge what His love is. Woe to him who resists his sufferings--he resists G.o.d! O! Father, I will bless Thy hand even if it grind me to powder--I will die in Thy kiss and the agony of death shall be bliss to me."
Suddenly--it seemed to him that the fearful Correntian was standing behind him, saying with freezing scorn, "Thus you swore just now and yet you refuse to make the first sacrifice that the Lord requires of you! Look, He holds out a craving hand that you may lay your eyes in it, and He says graciously, "Give them to Me that I may keep them for thee till I give them back to thee one day to see more gloriously in Heaven above"--just as a father might take from the hand of a child some dangerous instrument with which it might hurt itself; and you, like the wilful child, cling to the dangerous possession and push away the hand that asks when it might strike."
"Woe is me! Correntian! dark, avenging angel! must you follow me wherever I go?" groaned the tormented soul. "Whither may I fly from you; and where can I save you, my poor eyes, from the two-edged sword that he has planted in my heart there to gnaw in fury against myself."
Then again he heard the threatening voice, "Coward, what do you fear?
And what is it after all? You destroy a mirror in which h.e.l.l focuses its rays--you destroy a transparent vessel, and empty out once for all the fount of those tears which you then need never again shed. One stroke--and it is done; a stroke so slight that a child might drive it home, a hail-stone, a thorn--and you tremble at that?"
Nay, nay, it was not the stroke of the knife, not the flow of blood that he quaked at. In losing his eyes, he must extinguish the sun, moon, and stars, put out all light with this lovely world that is as the very presentment of G.o.d--plunge himself into nothingness, an outcast in the midst of the joys of all creation.
The sweat poured down his face, his knees failed him; he sank down in the tall, reedy gra.s.s, sobbing as he cooled his burning face in the moist, dewy earth.
END OF VOL. I.
PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.
COLLECTION
OF
GERMAN AUTHORS.
VOL. 38.
THE HOUR WILL COME BY W. von HILLERN.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.
TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
By the same Author, THE VULTURE MAIDEN (DIE GEIER-WALLY) ... 1 vol.